"Today we have one of our less unstable instructors to give us her theory! May I present Riza Wildman!"

The redheaded half-werewolf gave a lazy wave as she stood behind Shizuka, one hand in her pocket.

"So what observations have you made about the ex-star of your club?" Shizuka asked eagerly.

"Well, my guess would have to be a dragon," Riza murmured, crossing her arms over her chest.

Shizuka looked surprised. "Oh, my! That's more than a cut above the guesses we've had so far! That alone would probably make him one of the five most powerful creatures on campus!"

"I know, right?" Riza said, nodding. "Specifically, he'd be a Chinese dragon. The clothes, the fancy martial arts, and even the tornadoes make sense that way."

Then Riza smirked. "It also explains why he's so in line with the rule about disguises. If he transformed even once, he'd be able to completely destroy anyone short of a few of the faculty. None of the other students could even pretend to stand a chance, and then-"

"Hey, I have a question," Shizuka said suddenly.

Riza blinked. "Huh? What?"

"You're a half-werewolf, right?" the nekomata asked, "so you're a quarter wolf?"

Riza raised an eyebrow. "What? What are you-"

"Well, the word 'werewolf' is a compound word, composed of the old English word 'were', meaning man, and wolf, which makes the translation literally 'man-wolf', which is in line with the older legends regarding your species as being a hybrid of wolves and humans, usually created by a curse or disease," Shizuka said, sounding curiously knowledgeable as she explained the question, "so it's strange that a werewolf and a human wouldn't make a normal werewolf or a normal human in the first place, you know? So does that mean you're a quarter wolf and the rest of you is human, or is werewolf really a unique species on its own?"

Riza stared at the nekomata, her expression utterly perplexed. "Well, looks like SOMEONE majored in classic literature," the redhead mumbled as she turned her head away.

"Do you think I'd be in this dump if I had a REAL degree?" Shizuka deadpanned. "Anyway, do you have an answer?"

"Nah. It never really came up in the original manga," Riza said, shrugging.

"Oh. Well, I was just curious. Goodbye everybody!"


Black Dragon Productions proudly presents
a Ranma and Rosario Plus Vampire crossover

Surgeon General's Warning: viewing of the following materials has been known to cause various side effects, apparently including nose bleeds, and as such has been flagged by the FDA as a possible instigator of severe kidney damage. If you experience laughter lasting for more than four hours, contact your physician immediately.
Just to make sure we have all the legal angles covered, this story also probably causes cancer.
Have a nice day!

Key: Writing/Emphasis, Sounds, 'Thoughts', "Speech", (Comments that you can freely ignore), 'Inner Moka'

Big Human on Campus
Chapter 13
Evil is Subjective

"All right everyone!" Tsukune said, thrusting a hand into the air, "you have your assignments, right? You understand your job and your powers of arrest?"

Standing in front of the young human was the rest of the New Enforcers, with Ranma at the front of the group while Tobaki, whose job was administrative, stood next to Tsukune with her glasses on. They all either nodded silently or mumbled affirmations that they knew what to do, prompting Tsukune to continue.

"Good! And finally, you all know what 'investigate' means, right?" Tsukune asked.

Chopper immediately raised his hand, but Kouma leaned over and started whispering in his ear.

Chopper subsequently put his hand down and flashed a thumbs-up.

"Then we can begin at last!" Tsukune said, sweeping one arm to the side, "now let's go make our campus a better place!"

Most of the New Enforcers immediately thrust their fists into the air with a wild cheer, while Keito simply rolled her eyes and Tobaki watched the proceedings in respectful silence.

After that though, everyone but Tsukune and Tobaki filed out of the room, most of them eager to see what new challenges awaited them in their tasks.

Kurumu strode through the hall purposefully with her Protection Committe armband proudly on display, her gaze sweeping left and right to search for any signs of wrongdoing.

She had to admit, although she had her doubts at first, this job seemed infinitely better than being used as trap fodder for Professor Jadeite, and as she started her first patrol she began to feel a bit excited about the job for its own sake, too. Here she was, bringing Tsukune's vision of a fair, safe campus to realization after overthrowing the cruel, corrupt despot! How romantic!

She also rather liked the change in the attention she got. While Kurumu normally turned heads wherever she went, the attention usually came with a few wolf whistles or lewd comments as well. And although she didn't exactly dislike such shallow attention, having people straighten nervously as you walked by and keep a fearful silence gave the same boost to her self-esteem without the slightly scummy feeling that she got whenever random boys were undressing her with their eyes.

Not that she expected they had stopped doing that, but at least they seemed to be discreet about it now.

Kurumu frowned as she saw what looked like a confrontation going on down the hall. A large male student who was almost the size of Chopper was standing over a much smaller boy who seemed to be rooting nervously through his pockets.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Kurumu demanded, walking right up behind the larger boy and planting her fists on her hips. "You there! Back off!"

The bigger student glanced contemptuously behind him, turning just enough to see that he was being confronted by some busty girl but not enough to glimpse her armband.

"Oi, mind your own business, Tits," he growled out before turning back to his prey.

He was far less apathetic after feeling several razor-sharp claws stab into his side.

"GWAARGH!" The thug jolted forward as his victim darted out of the way, blood seeping slowly from his wound.

"That's MISS Tits to you, lowlife," Kurumu snapped as a vein throbbed on her head, "and since you brought it up, it IS my business."

Turning himself around while leaning against the wall, the ruffian glanced at his assailant and was extremely dismayed to see the white armband that marked her as an officer of the Protection Committee.

"All right! All right! Sorry!" the brute gasped as he held his bleeding flank, "I'll back down, all right?"

"Good. I'll let your scars be your citation, so get lost and don't cause any more trouble!" the succubus demanded.


As the miscreant limped off, Kurumu turned toward his victim, her eye sparkling. "Did you SEE that? I was SO COOL!"

The victimized student sweatdropped as he adjusted his glasses. "Er, yes, you certainly were. Thank you very much."

"Oh, it was nothing at all," Kurumu preened with her chin up as the boy pulled out his wallet, "a thug like him is... Uh... What are you doing?"

The boy counted out several bills from his wallet as he responded, "Rescue fee. Plus the protection money from the chemistry club for this month."

Kurumu blinked. "Protection money?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I meant 'service fees,'" he explained. "You're new, right? The Protection Committee charges service fees to all of the bigger-budget clubs so that you can finance your racke-excuse me, ACTIVITIES that keep our school safe and orderly."

Kurumu frowned as she thought over that explanation. Somehow it seemed a bit fishy, but at the same time she couldn't think of any particular objection to the argument, especially when it was coming from the person paying her.

"Well, okay, if you say so. Thank you for your support," Kurumu said, bowing slightly.

The chemistry club member folded the cash in half, and then grabbed the big bow that decorated Kurumu's sweater-vest, tugging her shirt collar open wide enough for him to slip the bills into her cleavage as Kurumu stood shock-still, too stunned by such a brazen act to do anything about it until he was finished.

Her eyes narrowed as the boy quickly let go of her, and she grabbed hold of her collar tightly. "Hey! Why did you put it there?"

"Would you like me to take it out?" the boy asked with an eager smile.

Kurumu didn't bother to answer, instead turning on her heel to find a girls' room so that she could retrieve her earnings without having to fondle herself in the middle of the hallway.

"And so I was hoping that now that we have a new Committee, I might be able to talk you into doing some actual WORK."

Mizore tried to fight off a yawn as she sat behind her new desk in the lobby of the Protection Committee, overseeing the line of students that had come to register complaints and open investigations with the New Enforcers.

At least, the line was composed of students. The person currently ranting at the rather sedate young woman and her temporary partner was the Dark Liege, a member of the faculty.

"All right Miss Liege, please just calm down and tell us what happened," Moka said from where she was sitting next to Mizore. She had been assigned to help Mizore with her new task, partially because they expected a deluge of work after it was announced that there was a new Committee, and partially because Mizore didn't strike anyone as being interested in or well-suited to her assigned task.

True to form, Mizore wasn't even trying to deal with the people in line, and simply filled out forms silently while Moka asked the necessary questions.

At least, Moka hoped she was filling out forms. Given that Mizore sometimes kept writing on the same sheet of paper as two or three students took their turns to offer their complaints, the vampiress was starting to suspect Mizore was just doodling the whole time.

"It's my soul shards. There are five pieces of extremely valuable crystal that were stolen from my desk several weeks ago," the buxom teacher said, her hands planted petulantly on her hips.

Moka nodded. "I understand. Do you have an estimate for how much the shards are worth?"

The Dark Liege frowned. "Well, imagine all the money on the entire planet..."

Moka blinked.

"... Now imagine all that money BURNING, because if my soul shards fall into the wrong hands it could result in worldwide catastrophe, and cash will only be useful as kindling and toilet paper!" the blonde insisted, slamming her hands flat against the table as she leaned over the two teenagers. Incidentally this gave the pair of schoolgirls a perfect view down her blouse, not that Mizore was paying attention or that Moka appreciated the vantage point.

Moka sweatdropped as Mizore continued scribbling. "So they're quite valuable, then. We'll work out an estimate later. You said they were stolen from your desk?"

"Yes, that was the last place I had them," the Dark Liege groused as she placed a slip of paper on the counter. "Here's a few sketches and notes on what type of gems they are. I expect you'll open a case?"

Moka nodded as she took the paper. "This is very helpful, thank you! We'll get right on this and let you know the moment we have any information, Miss Liege!"

"That's Dark Liege, dear. The name is its own honorific," the Dark Liege expained as she straightened. "Well, you've been far more helpful than the last few bozos doing this job, so you have my thanks. Good luck!"


As the curvaceous devil sauntered off, Moka leaned over toward Mizore. "Did you get all that? That was a teacher, so it's really important that we get all the details right! Especially if the world might really hang in the balance!"

Mizore mutely held up the paper she had been working on, revealing that she had, in fact, been doodling, though it seemed the topic of her doodles had been the case being described to them... to an extent. The drawing featured the entire world sitting upon a burning pile of money while two extremely cartoony figures exchanged mighty blows atop the globe. One was the Dark Liege, her oversexed (if not quite perfect) human form boasting wings and massive claws, while the other seemed to be Ranma, who was encircled by glowing jewels.

It was actually a pretty good art piece, although Moka was in no position to appreciate it.

"Why are you drawing? We have a serious duty to take care of!" Moka scolded the snow fairy. "Also, what does Ranma have to do with the missing jewels?"

"Secret," Mizore mumbled as she put the form away in a file folder and pulled out another blank investigation case form.

Before Moka could continue lecturing her current partner, the next student walked up and slammed a piece of paper down onto the desk, instantly securing her attention.

"Yes! How can... I... help you..." Moka trailed off as she stared up at the student. It was a female student, that much seemed obvious, with a perfectly normal-looking body wearing a perfectly normal uniform.

The girl's head, which appeared to be composed of snow with small pebbles to make a pair of eyes and a smiling mouth, was decidedly not normal.

Moka silently took the note as Mizore started scribbling again. "So... it seems like something was lost or stolen?" Moka couldn't make out much more than that, as the writing was extremely haphazard, but the girl nodded mutely.

"Okay, but... you're aware of the rules concerning human disguises, right? Is there a reason your head is like that?"

Bam! Bam! Bam! The aggrieved student started slamming her hand down next to her note noisily, finally disturbing Mizore enough for her to look up to see who was making such a racket.

"Ah, I remember you," Mizore said suddenly as she sat up, startling Moka with her sudden participation.

"You do?" Moka said in surprise, glancing at the note again. "Ah... It seems she lost her head somewhere?"

"Yeah," Mizore confirmed, "out during that freak snowstorm the other day."

Suddenly Moka's eyes widened. "Wait! Were you that girl who Jin froze and then decapitated?"

The girl started to nod rapidly, which started to cause the snowball mounted on her shoulders to tilt over before the girl's hands shot up to hold it steady.

"I don't understand, though. How did you survive?" Moka gasped, "we saw him break your head clean off!"


"Hi everyone! Are you ready to learn about Dullahans?" Shizuka Nekonome asked brightly as she slapped a hand against a long chalkboard.

"Dullahans are European monsters known as 'headless knights' or 'headless horsemen' owing to their most obvious trait: their head isn't attached to their necks!"

On the chalkboard was a drawing of a suit of armor with its hands reaching out to probe its surroundings awkwardly, with the helmet being crushed under its foot and muttering profanities.

"Dullahans are said to be the spirits of people who were decapitated, and wander the land in search for their heads! It's said that until they find their original heads, they'll never be able to rest in peace! In their quests to locate their missing noggin, the dullahan travels far and wide, often by wagon or horseback, which is why they're often known as the headless knights or horsemen."

Shizuka shrugged. "While that's more or less true, most of those who've encountered a dullahan note that they DO, in fact, have a head, although they often carry them under their arm rather than on their necks as is 'traditional'."

Shizuka pointed to the head in her drawing. "In most creatures the head houses many important organs and senses, and the dullahan is no different! So even a dullahan needs a head! However, since its original one is perpetually lost, it usually takes a loaner!"

Shizuka moved over to the next drawing that featured a very scared and confused orc as a headless suit of armor twisted its head off.

"Other people are usually attached to their heads - save the odd hydra, who's always good for one or two - so the dullahan inevitably has to take the head by force, which has also given them a reputation as bloody harbingers, riding from place to place and usually killing but a single person in the dead of night. After that the dullahan will carry around the stolen head, using it as their own until they lose it, it gets damaged, or it starts to rot away because it lacks the undying magic of the body."

Shizuka waved brightly. "Well, I hope you understand these headless heroes a little better now! Goodbye!"


Moka and Mizore stared behind them as Shizuka waved, and the former awkwardly waved back.

"Ah, yes... Thank you, Miss Nekonome," Moka mumbled, "I... didn't know that."

"Where did that chalkboard come from? How'd she get it in here without us noticing?" Mizore asked aloud as the feline teacher wheeled said chalkboard out of the room.

Bam! The dullahan girl slammed her hands on the table again, regaining the girls' attentions.

"Okay, so you want us to find the head that Jin broke off, is that it?" Moka asked.

As the distressed schoolgirl tried to nod her snowman head without it tipping off, Mizore frowned.

"You mean you don't like the head I built for you?" Although Mizore's voice was a bored monotone as usual, Moka definitely detected a hint of sadness in her question.

The girl didn't do anything at first, but then reached up to take out the pebbles that formed the corners of her mouth, and then rearranged them lower to turn the smile into a frown.

Mizore rubbed her chin. "Hmmm... What if I got you a carrot for a nose? Would that help?"

The dullahan promptly snatched a pair of pens from the desk, and then stuck them over her eyes with an inward slant to make a pair of angry-looking eyebrows.

"Never mind that, we'll start looking for your head immediately," Moka interjected hastily, "thank you for coming to us with this problem! Also, I'm VERY sorry none of us checked on you after the battle with Jin! It won't happen again!"

The dullahan girl made her best attempt at a shrug, and then promptly took out a pair of dark sunglasses and a cane. Sticking the sunglasses onto the snowball atop her neck, she turned around and slowly made her way toward the lobby entrance, using the cane to search in front of her for obstacles.

Moka and Mizore watched her go, seemingly fascinated by the sight, until the latter turned toward the former. "Wait... If that head doesn't work... how did she hear what we were saying?"

"Yo! Surprise inspection!"

The unexpected shout was all the warning that the art teacher, Hitomi Ishigami, got before the door to her classroom burst open, revealing a massive boy with a Protection Committee sweatband on his wrist.

"Wh-What? What are you doing? Class is in session!" Hitomi snapped, gesturing to the rows of surprised and confused students sitting at tables in the middle of the room.

"Yeah, I know," Chopper said dismissively as he stepped right by the teacher, his head swiveling left and right, "like I said, surprise inspection. The point is that you're not expecting it."

The troll ignored Hitomi's sputtering protests as he started looking around the room, noting the shelves full of art supplies and the rows of lockers next to them.

"Some students have gone missin' from your classes, so I came here to check for clues," Chopper said as he started rooting through the art supplies.

"You could have informed me!" Hitomi said angrily. Her hair, which was tied into numerous thin braids, seemed to shake and quiver as she spoke, as if the braids themselves were agitated.

"What part of 'surprise' don't you understand, Teach?" Chopper grumbled as he moved to the lockers.

The first one was empty, so he tried the next one, which was full of towels.

The third one was locked, and Hitomi chewed her lip briefly.

"I'm not sure I have the key to that particular locker on hand," she said, "but if you-"

The sound of tearing metal interrupted her, and the art teacher's eyes bugged out as Chopper tossed the twisted and broken lock onto the floor.

Chopper opened up the locker, and was surprised to see a life-sized stone statue of a schoolgirl standing there, her expression locked in surprise and horror.

"... Huh." Chopper rubbed his oversized chin as he stared at the statue, "that's weird."

"Wh-What's weird about me taking up sculpting?" Hitomi said as her hair braids continued to quiver dangerously.

"Naw, it's just weird that this statue looks exactly like one of the chicks that went missin'," Chopper explained as he drew a photo from his pocket and glanced between the statue and the photo.

"Yes, well... I made it as a memorial of poor Miss Kajimoto, who vanished without a trace," Hitomi said, her voice wavering only slightly as she felt all her students staring at her, "I call it 'Demise of Naivete'."

Chopper stared very closely at the face. "Is this statue... crying?"

Hitomi hesitated a long time before she smiled awkwardly. "It's avant-garde."

"Oh... Okay," Chopper said, shrugging. "Well, I can't find any clues here. If you get any more information about the missing students, you know where to go," the troll said as he closed the locker and made his way to the door, bored and disappointed.

"Of course. Thank you for your hard work," Hitomi Ishigami said, her mouth twitching only slightly as she forced a smile for the wrestler.


As soon as Chopper was out the door, the art teacher breathed a sigh of relief. 'Well, that was a close one. I didn't know that the Protection Committee did surprise inspections... or normal inspections, for that matter.'

"Miss Ishigami?" one of her female students said suddenly as she raised her hand, looking nervous, "I don't think I'm going to be at my after-school session today... or ever again."

Hitomi hid her annoyance fairly well as she kept her false smile plastered over her face. "Oh, that's a shame. Good luck on your charcoal drawings, Miss Hajimata!" 'Damn Enforcers. I need to get bigger locks...'

"Well, this ought to be fun," a wiry boy grumbled as he took his seat around the donut-shaped table (now boasting evidence of significant repairs) that served the student council.

"What?" asked Matano, the vice president, as he took his own seat, "something going on today?"

"The new Protection Committee is sending in their thug today; Volos' replacement. Can't wait," the first member said as he started flipping through a folder, other student representatives filing in behind him.

Matano's mood instantly dipped. "Ah. Yes. I hope it's not that Saotome fellow. We'd have to chain everything down to keep it from getting swept up in all the tornadoes."

"Well, he's not THAT bad," said another student class rep as he took his seat, "and Aono seems like a good guy, so maybe he'll be kept in line?"

"You're the rep for his class, right?" asked the first councilman, "did you hear that they already killed off Jikan? He was trying to dismiss the last of the old Protection Committee, and he got torn apart!"

"Tell me about it," interjected another councilman as he walked past to his seat, "I was terrified when I was assigned to check up on him. Still kinda surprised they let me go without even a warning."

"Well, there might've been... you know, circumstances," offered the representative for Ranma and Tsukune's class, "and they DID fill out all the requisite paperwork. It doesn't mean that Aono's going to turn tyrant on us."

"How perfectly naive," the first representative snapped as the last few members of the council took their seats. "These guys are all the same. Give him a taste of real power and a few burly bastards like Saotome to back him up, and Aono will be treating the entire school as his personal cash cow, just like Kuyo. Soon Aono will have one of his thugs lording over us during our meetings, and things will right back to 'normal,' mark my words."

The disgruntled councilman fell silent as Hokuto, the student council president, stood up and clapped his hands for attention.

"All right, then! Is everyone here? If so, we can begin today's session!"

Bam! The redhead raised an eyebrow as the double-doors at the entrance suddenly burst open, admitting the last participant for the meeting.

"I'm here! Sorry I'm late!" Moka shouted, bowing profusely before she started moving toward the only empty seat. "I was helping someone else on the Committee! It won't happen again!"

Matano turned toward the disgruntled council member he was speaking to before. "Well, at least the tyrant sends the prettiest thugs to keep us under his thumb."

"Aono Tsukune is a PRINCE of a man, and you shut your filthy, blasphemous mouth if you think to suggest otherwise," snapped back the councilman as his eyes tracked the gorgeous pink-haired girl across the chamber. "Finally, a reason to actually GO to these meetings!"

Keito yawned as she walked into the lobby of the Protection Committee offices, having completed her patrol at last.

All told, she had seen four instances of assault and robbery, one incident of a student eating what she could only guess used to be another student, and there was someone screaming an awful lot inside the girls' locker room despite the fact that no one should have been in there during that time period.

All those facts were filed away in her head to be used or ignored as necessary. She could have easily stopped most of the incidents, of course, but she couldn't find any reason to bother. There was the issue of earning enough trust from Tsukune that he wasn't actively looking for a reason to get rid of her, but it was precisely because she was so distrusted that she didn't even want to bother; if her culprit decided to lie or try to implicate her, then her "compatriots" were almost certain to believe him over her.

There would be a time for earning trust. For now, it was enough that she had her position and didn't have to actually work.

Keito was just opening the door to her office when she spotted a small, scuttling creature out of the corner of her eye.

She was quite surprised to see a giant spider just a bit bigger than a house cat crawling leisurely out of the room that had served as a training room whenever Jin saw fit to drill the members of the compliance squad.

Her curiosity piqued, she walked over to the lesser arachnid and then leaned over to pick it up.

"Ah! Ah! No! That's not food!" Ranma shouted, suddenly emerging from the doorway and startling the spider woman. "Don't eat that!"

Keito raised an eyebrow as she took up the giant spider underneath the thorax before bringing it up to her chest the way one would a small dog or cat. "I don't think you need to be concerned about this little thing harming me."

"I wasn't talking to him," Ranma deadpanned as he crossed his arms, "don't eat any of my spiders."

A vein popped up on Keito's head, and the giant spider hissed as it sensed her irritation. "Are you an idiot? Just what do you take me for?"

"A really big spider handling a less big spider," Ranma said simply. "It took me some time to teach 'em not to eat each other, so I figure you're completely beyond help."

Keito quickly decided that she had questions that needed answering that took priority over her aggravation at her vice-captain. "What do you mean you taught them? What could YOU teach anybody?"

Rather than answering the shallow insult, Ranma snapped his fingers and shouted, "Come!"

The spider immediately scrambled up onto Keito's shoulder and leapt onto Ranma's chest, to Keito's utter astonishment. She was even more surprised that Ranma didn't so much as flinch as the arachnid landed on him and started scuttling up his body and onto his shoulder.

"Of course, that's just for starters," Ranma said in the smuggest tone he could manage as he ran a hand gently over the spider's hairy abdomen, "I'm in the middle of a training session right now."

"Oh, I have GOT to see this," Keito quipped as she approached the room. "The idea of a moron like you actually enforcing your will over arachnids has to be one of the most incredible and unnatural things in this world. I could hardly miss my chance to watch such a farce."

"Yeah, sure. Come on," Ranma mumbled as he re-entered the room.


Certainly, Keito had heard that Ranma and Tsukune both got on well with spiders, but that was where her intel on the subject faltered. The fact that her beastly brethren didn't kill and eat the boys as she would have gladly done in their place wasn't of particular concern to her, and she had never imagined that either of them had actually taken to TRAINING them like mere pets.

And even if she had considered it, the fact that it was Ranma the brute rather than Tsukune the hapless diplomat doing it STILL made the whole idea laughable.

That said, Keito wasn't laughing as she entered the training room and saw what was going on.

Nearly two dozen giant spiders, ranging in size from as big as a large rat to as big as a large dog, scuttled about the training area, spinning webs and crawling over obstacle courses made of stacked-up chairs, tubs of water, and layers of grease to render some surfaces too slick to climb. At the far end a group was apparently doing attack drills, launching themselves furiously at a row of cloth training dummies already covered in puncture wounds.

Yukari was at the end of the obstacle course, and as one dog-sized spider successfully clambered over two parallel bars suspended over tubs of water, the young witch reached into a sack next to her and - somehow - pulled out a live muskrat that she tossed in front of the beast. It wasted no time in leaping upon the confused mammal, causing Yukari to cringe at the grisly act of nature.

Aside from the area with the training dummies, Kana sat on a chair reading a book while her mouth occasionally moved wordlessly. At least, it seemed to be wordless, but Keito then realized that at about the same time the training dummies would shout something, a function that she was sure Jin had never needed or wanted. In a perfect sequence straight down the room, the targets would break out in villainous laughter, demand money, meow, or ask why Ranma hadn't done his homework.


"So? Whaddya think?" Ranma said as he continued stroking the hairy beast that had settled atop his arm.

"I'm disgusted and dismayed," Keito deadpanned, "but I'll save hate and anger for after you explain exactly what I'm looking at, here."

Ranma seemed slightly put out by her attitude, but went on to explain. "Well, you know how real police have K-9 teams?"

"No," Keito replied irritably, "what the blazes are you talking about?"

Ranma sighed in that way that Yukari sometimes did when she tried to explain needlessly complicated things to Kurumu. "In the human world, human police keep teams of dogs to help them out."

"Then make Gamaroshi do it," Keito snapped, "why are you making spiders do your dirty work?"

"Well, what else are you good for?" Yukari quipped as she pulled out a raccoon from her bag and then sent it flailing at another spider that navigated the obstacle course successfully.

"Shut up, pest," Keito snarled at the young witch, "it's absurd that spiders should have to serve something like you."

"Said the spider serving something like me," Yukari deadpanned.

"All right, that's enough," Ranma interjected before Keito could come up with an appropriately poisonous comeback, "stop your complaining, it's not like the hairy freaks seem to mind. And we could use the help too, since we're a bit short-staffed."

Keito seethed quietly as she watched the training continue, and then made an incoherent snarling noise.

At least, it was incoherent to the various two-legged, warm-blooded animals in the room. The spider on Ranma's arm quivered at the noise, and its fangs wiggled threateningly as it clung more tightly to him.

Keito's eyes narrowed, noting the lack of biting or surprised screaming. "I'm honestly surprised," she mumbled, "they really see you as their master."

"Of course they do," Yukari said, "they're way smarter than you."

Once again, Ranma stepped in before Keito and Yukari could start slinging insults, mostly because he wanted the spider woman out of the way. "Look, if you're not going to help with the training, then you're just in the way. Why don't you call it a day?" asked the pigtailed boy.

"Not before you clear up one more thing," Keito said in a deadly serious tone, "there's something that's been bothering me ever since I came in here."

"Yeah, and what's that?" Yukari asked as started shaking her Bag of Tricks upside-down to see if there were any more animals left to be summoned for food.

Keito pointed toward the corner of the room where the giant spiders were pouncing on training dummies. "Why are all those dummies made up to look like Miss Nekonome Shizuka?"

Neither Ranma nor Yukari said anything immediately, and Kana lowered her head so that her face was better hidden by her book.

"... I don't know what you're talking about," Ranma said evenly as he glanced to the side, refusing to make eye contact.

"It IS a little suspicious, Senpai," Yukari admitted.

"Hurry up and get more food for the spiders," Ranma ordered, intent on letting the topic go unresolved, "we need to start feeding the ones at the training dummies. Keito, get lost. You're a bad influence to the other spiders."

Keito snorted derisively as she turned on her heel. "Whatever you say, cretin."

Tobaki (sans glasses) stretched her arms over her head as she left the Protection Committee offices, having completed far more work in the past hour than she had ever performed in a single day under Kuyo.

Not that she was strictly satisfied with the results, as the reason for her having so much to do were the massive budget cuts to their department. When Moka had returned from the student council session, she reported that the council had decided to "review" the Protection Committee's budget for any potential "efficiency savings".

As it turned out, the previous budget was VERY inefficient.

The budget used to cover a great variety of critical supplies and activities that Kuyo insisted were necessary for maintaining morale, such as uniforms, supplies, office furniture, weapons, leisure items and luxuries for when the Committee was "working", personal salaries for the higher-ranked Enforcers, catering costs for the weekly office parties, a dry ice subsidy for the Enforcers who liked their offices kept at below freezing temperatures, life insurance premiums for the lower-ranked members that the officers would bet were going to get themselves killed, extra maintenance crew to clean up after Keito's webbing, Tobaki's bodily sludge and the lazy Enforcers who were too picky to devour their kills, and of course a stipend for Kuyo's XBox Live subscription.

That list had been pared down considerably.

Even taking into account that some of those items were no longer wanted (from what she had gathered, none of the New Enforcers were avid gamers), she still had to apply massive cuts to parts of the Committee's activities that she would have liked to see preserved.

Really, what irked Tobaki was less that their budget had been cut and more that Moka had apparently let it go without any resistance.

'Maybe the others are right; she does seem pretty useless. What does she think her job is? And Captain Aono let it go without so much as a reprimand! Rookies.'

Nonetheless, she had done HER job properly, and was taking a break to eat. Somebody had to get the real work done, after all.


"Tobaki! Yo!"

The dark-skinned girl turned around at the call, and she brightened as she saw two friends of hers approaching from the hall.

"Akuna! Tsuna! Hi!" she called back, waving happily to the girls. "I was just about to go eat!"

"Oh, we're just in time, then!" said Akuna, a rather bloated girl of average height with sharp, saw-like teeth and an almost permanent grin. "Tsuna has this guy she's fallen for from class 2-D."

Tobaki brightened. "Really? That's so exciting!"

Tsuna, a short, wiry girl with shoulder length black hair that obscured her eyes smiled shyly. "He's on the cricket team. He just looks... DELICIOUS." The last word was spoken with an almost otherwordly snarl, and two bright pinpricks of white light were visible through her hair.

Akuna chuckled as her own eyes started to change color to a blazing crimson. "Yeah, so we thought we'd corner him before practice, force ourselves on him, and eat him alive! Maybe at the same time. Depends on how good he is. You want in?"

Tobaki was about to enthusiastically agree to join them when she suddenly thought of her position as a New Enforcer, and the new expectations that she was working under.

"Actually, I think that might conflict with some of the school rules," Tobaki said, scratching her chin as her brow furrowed.

"Oh, come on!" Akuna said, sounding exasperated, "when did you get all Lawful! Cut loose and have some fun! We're demons, girl!"

Tobaki frowned at her friend. "Akuna, you know that I'm not like Mom! I came to this school so I could choose my own life in the human world, and if we're going to learn to survive, we can't just ignore the rules!"

After she finished admonishing the other demon, however, her expression faltered slightly. "That said, I AM awfully hungry, and a free meal would be nice. Our budget just got chopped up like you wouldn't believe..."

Poof! A chibi version of Keito appeared on Tobaki's right shoulder, carrying a pitchfork.

"It's fine, it's fine!" the chibi-Keito said, crossing her arms. "What Aono doesn't know won't hurt him! It'll only hurt some loser you've probably never met! As long as the captain doesn't find out about your involvement, it doesn't matter!"

As Tobaki considered that point, a small puff of smoke over her left shoulder heralded the appearance of a chibi Tsukune who had a halo floating over his head.

"No way! You can't get involved in this! Tsukune is the captain, and he laid down the law! If you simply ignore rules and orders because you feel like it, you're no different from all the mindless horrors that sit around for eons in caverns and dungeons, waiting to be skewered by wandering adventurers! Is that what you want? Or do you want to be more than some heavily armed human's morning exercise?"

Tobaki frowned deeply as she tilted her head.

Chibi-Keito snorted. "Oh, get real! A crime is only a crime if it's reported and investigated, you know! There's no reason to get so worked up over one little killing!"

"And yet, Tsukune DID get worked up over one little killing," chibi-Tsukune countered, "and the only way to truly make sure he doesn't find out about this one is to not do it to begin with."

Tobaki nodded reluctantly. "So... maybe if they kill him instead of me..."

"Absolutely not!" chibi-Tsukune shouted, his halo glowing brighter as chibi-Keito shielded her eyes irritably. "If you killing innocent people is wrong, why would it be okay to stand by and do nothing as other people do it? You may be gullible and naive, but you're not stupid, Tobaki! Captain Aono said killing is not allowed, and explained all the exceptions! He gave you a chance even after you messed up, so are you really going to betray him just so you can save your lunch money?"

Chibi-Keito growled as she covered her ears, glaring at her angelic counterpart. "Yeesh, your little imaginary version is just as annoying and preachy as the real thing. Are you seriously going to let this worthless sack of meat push you around?"


"Uh... what's with the little people on her shoulders?" Tsuna whispered to Akuna, her head tilting to one side to an alarming degree.

"Internal debate. Give her a minute," the other demon advised.

Tobaki suddenly broke out of the trance that she had briefly drifted into, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at Akuna and Tsuna, who were giving her odd looks as they waited for an explanation.

"No way. I'm putting a stop to this now," the yochlol said firmly, one eye glowing a deep, dark red.

"Whaaaaaat?" Tsuna moaned, tilting her head to the other side.

"You can't kill that guy. Apparently, murder is wrong, and as a member of the Protection Committee I cannot kill someone who hasn't done anything wrong themselves, nor can I allow someone else to do so," Tobaki said, squaring her shoulders and looking surprisingly intimidating for a petite elven girl.

"Are you serious?" Akuna grumbled.

"I'm serious," Tobaki confirmed, "even if you're my friends, you can't break the rules as you see fit."

As she stared down her friends, Tobaki felt an unfamiliar feeling well up inside the mass of horrific viscous fluids that more or less acted as her heart. 'How about that, Captain? I've upheld your rules and maintained the rule of law, and even resisted the pressure to look the other way for my friends! You would be so proud of me!'

"Soooo..." Tsuna hissed, her head tilting to the other side, "can we still rape him?"

"I don't see why not," Tobaki said, shrugging. "If you can wait until after lunch, I'll join you!"

"Okay, sure!"

Tsukune adjusted his tie nervously as he approached the gym, steeling himself for the conflict to come.

Despite a few offers of help and much worry from Kurumu and Moka, he was out alone in his mission, as was the cornerstone of his plan.

The goal was simple: to put a stop to the fight club's bullying and disruptive behavior.

Ranma had insisted that the way to do it was a showdown with Riza Wildman, while Yukari had suggested that thrashing the individual members in a massive show of force would eventually weaken the club to the point where it couldn't hold its turf, which was the explicit goal of the group.

Keito hadn't volunteered any ideas, but given that she was around when the last fight club membership was dealt with, Tsukune was sure she had a few.

But he had held his ground and insisted on trying peaceful negotiation first. Specifically WITHOUT a bodyguard.

The reasoning was simple: the fight club was motivated almost entirely by battle-lust. If he were to march into their midst with powerful challengers in tow, they would have sensed an attempt to intimidate them, which would have broken down negotiations and started a battle... That is, if they didn't attack immediately purely for the sake of getting their fight.

With only him around, there was absolutely no chance of a fight (although there was still the uncomfortably high chance of there being a beating) and thus they were far more likely to at least hear him out.

That was the logic behind it, anyway. He had to admit though, as he neared the training area staked out by the club of battle-hungry monsters, he was feeling less and less certain of his plan, and more and more keenly aware of how much he appreciated Ranma's company.


"Everything's going to be okay, Tsukune," the young human mumbled to himself as he stepped up to the doors, "you've dealt with these... 'people' before. They're not bad, necessarily, just reckless and energetic! You've gotten your way by talking sense into them before, and you can do it again!"

Feeling slightly better after his pep talk - and thinking that maybe Yukari had the right idea about this "rhetoric" thing - Tsukune pushed his way through the door.

"Excuse me! I'm from-"

Whap! Before Tsukune could even get a good look into the room, his ankles were clipped hard, sending him face-first onto the floor.

"Guh!" He grunted as someone stomped on his back immediately afterward, driving the air out of his lungs.

"Huh. Well, that was easy," said a male voice above him. "Told you there was someone outside talking to himself."

"A little too easy," a girl behind him said, "I don't think this guy's actually a fighter at all."

"You're right!" Tsukune gasped out as he twisted his head to try and see what was going on. "Not a fighter! Definitely! Just here to talk!"

In addition to the boy and girl above him, he could now see that there were others from the fight club breaking off from their training to come see what all the fuss was about.

"Hey, look! Another Enforcer! You bagged him!"

"That's not just any Enforcer! Look at his armband! That's the captain!"

"Then why'd he drop so easily? Isn't he supposed to be some kind of bad-ass?"

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Tsukune said as best he could with his body still flat on the floor and a foot grinding into his back, "I will have answers to any questions you might have! But can I get up first?"

The students shared a glance, and then the girl who had tripped him in the first place grinned down at him. "What, you can't answer our questions from down there?"

"It is a little hard for my voice to project, really," Tsukune said as sweat started to bead on his forehead.

"Then I guess you'll have to speak up, wontcha?" the boy stepping on Tsukune's back taunted.

"All right, all right, break it up, you losers!"


Tsukune was quite relieved to hear Riza Wildman's voice, and watched best he could as the small crowd parted to let the redhead through.

"Well, well, if it isn't the nice guy from before!" Riza said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Heard you made Captain, kid! Congratulations!"

"Th-Thanks," Tsukune said weakly, "any chance I could get up, now?"

To his frustration, rather than answering him, Riza simply dropped into a crouch next to his head.

"It's fine. What brings you by? Come to challenge the fight club president in single combat?"

"No! Definitely not! My visit has nothing to do with fighting!" Tsukune insisted.

Many of the fight club members immediately lost interest after this, and the small gathering dispersed with only a few students staying to find out what Tsukune's trip was all about.

"Just as well. We still haven't decided on a president since you took Saotome," Riza mumbled, "so what's the deal?"

"I came to speak to the fight club about working together with the new Protection Committee in order to make this school a safer and better place for everyone!" Tsukune said in what he hoped was a confident and inspirational tone. He really wished he could have done so in a less pitiable posture, but at this point he was willing to be thankful they were giving him a chance to speak.

Riza frowned at this. "Isn't that a lot different from the last thing you wanted us to do? You know, crush the Protection Committee utterly so it would be easy to disband them?"

"Yes, it is, but the situation is also a lot different from before," Tsukune explained, "as Captain, I intend to enforce the rules and keep the students of Youkai Academy at peace! For that I need the fight club's help... Or at least I need you to stop actively seeking to wipe out the Protection Committee, now that I lead it."

Riza cocked her head to one side. "Yuh huh... And what if we don't?"

"I didn't come here to make threats," Tsukune insisted, "as leader of the Protection Committee, I intend to enforce the rules fairly and universally, so if you insist on bullying other students and sowing chaos then we'll eventually have a confrontation, but I'm not going to try to hit you with some special penalty or make a special move against you. I'd like for us to come to an understanding that resolves any discipline problems and conflicts WITHOUT violence."

Riza rubbed her chin briefly before she shrugged. "Well, let's see about that." The redhead straightened up, and then cupped her hands around her mouth. "Yo, chumps! Any of you feel like resolving our issues with the Protection Committee without violence?"

Tsukune found the laughter that answered Riza to be quite discouraging.

"Well, this is how it is," Riza said, shrugging. "Sorry buddy. I actually thought it was kinda cool how you came down here all by yourself and tried to talk things out even though you were sure to get beat up for it, but this is a student club after all. I can't just order them to stand down like a bunch of dogs."

Tsukune considered pointing out that Riza DID seem to command the fight club like they were a pack of dogs, but there was a part of her apology that concerned him more. "Don't you mean 'even though you were PROBABLY going to get beat up'?"

Almost on cue, Tsukune felt an agonizing pain as some kind of spike punctured his back, and then that part of his body started to go numb.

"No. No, she didn't," the boy chuckled as he grabbed the back of Tsukune's shirt and pulled him up.

Of course, in that short amount of time the venom from his recent sting had already brought him halfway to unconsciousness, and thus the last thing that the increasingly light-headed boy saw was the floor of the gym rapidly approaching his face.

"No way. Not doing it," Kouma said irritably as he exited the school building with Ranma right behind him.

"Hey, come on, man! It's not like I'm asking you to do anything hard," Ranmna insisted, following the hellhound on the trail between the classroom building and the dorms.

"It's not hard, it's humiliating!"

Ranma scoffed. "What? Tracking down the gigantic spider by scent? What's so humiliating about that?"

Kouma growled as he turned around to face his superior. "Get this through your head, Saotome! I'm not your pet dog! I do not fetch! I do not sit! I don't roll over or beg or sniff out foxes or ANY of that crap!"

"Yeesh, none of those? Where'd you go to obedience school?" Ranma asked sarcastically.

"Mephiston Junior Academy, on the third level of the underworld," Kouma answered seriously, "it was nice enough, you know, considering it was in Hell and all, but it was a state school."

Ranma frowned. "Well, what if I ORDER you to do it?"

"Then we get to find out what kind of TERRIBLE punishment our captain has in mind for people that refuse your stupid orders," Kouma said rather smugly. "You never know, Aono might be in a really bad mood and have to get serious! Just think, he might actually raise his voice at me!"

Ranma clicked his tongue in annoyance as Kouma smiled smugly.

"Actually, come to think of it, where is our fearless leader, anyway?" Kouma asked. "Isn't he back from talking to the fight club yet?"

"Yeah, I think he's finished with 'em," Ranma said blithely as he pointed up in the air behind Kouma.

Kouma turned around to look, and then had to hold in laughter as he saw Tsukune tied securely to the top of the school's flag pole, stripped down to his underwear and seemingly unconscious. The only other piece of "clothing he wore was his Protection Committee armband, which had been stretched over his eyes like a blindfold.

"Looks like diplomacy didn't work so well. Maybe we should've stopped him," Ranma said regretfully as he jogged over to the flag pole to free his roommate.

"We TRIED to stop him. Not our fault he's gone all self-righteous on us lately," Kouma said, snorting. "'No killing, guys!' 'Let's cut our budget so we don't get paid!' 'Don't start any fights with the most powerful monster gang on campus!' I know Aono's playing the good human, but he doesn't have to be such a boy scout."

"Aw, lay off 'im. He's doing a pretty good job so far, considering how nutty this place is," Ranma said as he reached the base of the flag pole.

"And considering how nutty his help is," Kouma added as he glanced around.

There were several students gathered sparsely around the flag pole, most of them snickering and pointing at the hapless boy or taking cell phone pictures, and they all stepped back as Ranma leapt onto the pole, clambering up to the top in a few moments.

"Out cold," Ranma said as he wrapped his legs around the pole and started to untie the ropes, "he doesn't look that beat up, though." Tsukune's nose had suffered a hit, but it didn't look like a knockout blow, and Ranma couldn't see any other obvious injury.

That changed once he got the ropes off and grabbed the younger human around the waist. "Ah, I see. Looks somebody stung him in the back."

Kouma clicked his tongue as Ranma slid down. "Well, they could've done much worse, but still, poison was unnecessary. That's why we all told him to bring a few guards along!"

Ranma dropped the rest of the way onto the ground, and then shifted Tsukune so his friend was draped over one shoulder. "Well, let's wait and see what he wants to do when he wakes up. C'mon, we'll take him to the nurse's office."

Kouma raised an eyebrow. "Don't you want to take him to your room to get him dressed first?"

"He's been POISONED. Isn't it more important to get him some help?" Ranma insisted.

"I'm not saying it isn't, but..." the hellhound hesitated, glancing around at the random students watching and whispering amongst themselves, "isn't it just a little embarrassing being carried around the halls by another dude while wearing nothing but your tightie whities? Might start a bad rumor."

"... Huh. I hadn't really thought of it like that," Ranma admitted, frowning. Even so, he was positive that Tsukune's health took priority over his reputation.

"Got an idea," Ranma said suddenly, glancing around at the crowd, "anyone got a water bottle? Or some kind of water-summoning power? We need water, here! COLD water!"

Kouma blinked. "Oh, to suppress the sting while you get him decent? I guess that could-"

"Here," Mizore interrupted the hellhound as she rounded the corner, a plastic bottle of water in her hand.

Ranma seemed quite surprised as the snow fairy covered the distance between them in an instant, and then presented the water bottle mutely.

"Oh! Thanks, Mizore," Ranma said as he took the proffered item, "I actually didn't notice you there..."

Mizore kept her blank expression, but raised a thumbs-up. "Getting better."

Ranma didn't waste any time congratulating her on her skill at stealth, and quickly dumped the water over his head, immediately shrinking his frame beneath Tsukune's (not overwhelming) bulk and changing his hair a bright red.

"All right, that should do it!" Ranma said before shifting Tsukune around to a fireman's carry and then dashing off to the school building. "I'll see you guys later, after he regains consciousness!"


"Oh, yeah, like THAT won't cause rumors," Kouma said as Ranma quickly dashed out of earshot. "That idiot. He could have asked for someone's coat or something."

Mizore shrugged. "Why didn't you give up yours?"

Kouma winced. "I... don't like other people wearing my clothes, okay? They get their smell on them and then I smell them on me wherever I go..."

Mizore snorted at the rather petty excuse. "So you won't help your captain keep his dignity... if it causes you discomfort later? Huh."

Kouma groaned as he started to walk off toward the school building himself. "Lay off me, all right? It's not like I volunteered for this job, you know. I don't owe Saotome or Aono anything!"

He stalked off in silence, leaving the snow woman behind.

Then he halted, and a pair of black, pointed ears popped up through his hair.

"Wait a minute... isn't she supposed to be running that complaint desk in the lobby?" the hellhound asked, whirling around on the spot.

But by that time, the gloomy (and apparently hypocritical) snow fairy was gone.

Tsukune awoke with a gasp.

His eyes immediately darted back and forth, trying to take his surroundings as quickly as possible.

'Miss Madaraki's office? Thank God. I'm safe,' he thought as his body started to relax.

At least, it relaxed as much as it could. He felt strangely numb, his nose was sore, and he was having slight difficulty breathing, as if his lungs weren't quite able to take in as much air as they were trying to take in.

This would have alarmed him normally, but the knowledge that he was already in the nurse's office reassured him. Fran was a brilliant doctor - or near-doctor, or whatever - and he was sure she would take good care of him, no matter what his injury was.

That subject caused him to frown. What was his injury? The last thing he remembered was speaking to Riza, but he was hazy about the topic... And also, he got a sense of hopelessness and despair when he thought about it.

Probably not a good result, then.

His musings were interrupted when the curtain around his bed slid to the side, revealing Fran Madaraki.

"Ah, Mister Aono. You're conscious again," Fran said pleasantly. She had six arms for some reason, rather than her usual two, but by now Tsukune was far beyond being bothered by something like that.

"Yes, thank you," Tsukune said, his voice slightly hoarse. "Any idea what happened to me?"

"It is my understanding that negotiations with the fight club failed," Fran explained bluntly, and with a smile, "so in that respect you should consider yourself incredibly lucky to have suffered only a bloody nose and a mild dose of nerve toxin."

"Lucky... Yes..." the human boy mumbled weakly. 'Well, if they had actually thought I was a threat then they might have fought me for real, so I guess she's right,' he thought as he started to throw off the bed sheet.

He rapidly pulled the bed sheet down again. "Uh... Miss Madaraki, can I have my clothes?"

Fran blinked as she cocked her head to one side. "I'm afraid that's impossible. I don't have them."

"What? What happened?"

"You'd have to ask the fight club," Fran asked as she finally walked over to the bed and shined a light into Tsukune's eyes.

"They dropped me off here in my underwear?" Tsukune groused, annoyed. He was well aware that he had been effectively (and by choice) at their mercy, but he was still more than a little frustrated by this turn of events.

"No. I don't know where they dropped you, but Mister Saotome found you and brought you here," Fran explained as she moved on to check his pulse, "he stepped out to bring more injured here."

Tsukune's eyes widened. "More injured? Was there an accident?"

"No," Fran answered promptly, "none of the wounds were accidents."

Tsukune was silent for several seconds as Fran rolled him over to check on the point where he had been stung. "I don't follow."

Before Fran could answer, Tsukune heard the sound of the door opening, although that part of the office was still hidden from view by a curtain.

"Oi, Miss Madaraki! Got another one for ya!" Ranma yelled.

"Look, I'm sorry about the wolf whistles, all right? That was very immature! Please, no tornadoes!" begged a very desperate-sounding voice from next to her.

"God, what is WITH you freaks and the tornadoes? I only did that once!" Ranma complained as she stepped into the portion of the office that Tsukune could see.

"Ranma! Thank you so much!" Tsukune said, grabbing the redhead's attention.

"Hey 'Kune. How're you feeling?" Ranma dropped the student she had been dragging roughly on the floor as Fran Madaraki stepped over to give him a cursory examination.

"I'm a bit numb, and really tired, but I guess I can't complain," the younger human said, "why did you turn into a girl?"

"For your sake," Ranma said simply, confusing Tsukune considerably.

"Really? REALLY? And I'm supposed to just let that go without so much as a snicker?" asked the student Ranma was still holding on to.

Crack! Tsukune winced as Ranma smashed said student's head into the wall and then let the unfamiliar boy drop to the floor, unconscious.

"Miss Saotome, please refrain from adding new injuries before I've finished diagnosing the old one," Fran chided.

"Sorry about that," Ranma mumbled as Fran took the boy off to a new bed.


"Well, you don't look like you're up to any more confrontations, and most of the others have probably finished their patrols and stuff, so why don't you call it a night?" Ranma suggested, jabbing a thumb behind him.

"That's... That's a good idea. Yeah," Tsukune mumbled, wrapping his bed sheet around him as he slowly got out of his cot.

"You should be experiencing shortness of breath and a lack of feeling in your extremeties as the anti-venom neutralizes the remaining toxins," Fran explained as she tended to Ranma's most recent victim, "however, there is negligible danger of further complications. You are free to go."

"Thanks, Miss Madaraki. I'll return this sheet tomorrow," Tsukune promised as he finished wrapping the sheet around him like a makeshift toga.


As Ranma and Tsukune exited the building, the latter shuddered at the sudden chill, the bed sheet failing to insulate him very well against the wind.

"Geez, what a day," the younger human groused, "but thanks again for taking me to the nurse's office."

"No sweat," Ranma said, shrugging off the thanks, "besides, it's always nice to see Fran again. I think I've spent more time with her than some of my actual teachers."

Tsukune sighed. "And I'm sorry about the fight club."

Ranma blinked. "Sorry? For what?"

"You were right. Well, you and Kouma. Talking to the fight club was a mistake, and I was foolish for thinking they could be swayed so easily," Tsukune mumbled bitterly.

Ranma raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to respond. It was certainly unusual for people to admit fault to her, much less tell her she was right, but somehow it felt... wrong in this instance.

"You know, Tsukune, just because it didn't work out this time doesn't mean you did the wrong thing," Ranma said suddenly, placing a hand on the younger human's shoulder, "sometimes good ideas just don't work out. And sometimes doing the right thing means using a plan that probably won't work, or will make things worse."

"You've had to make decisions like that?" Tsukune asked a bit eagerly, always wanting to hear more about Ranma's past.

"I consider myself an expert on doing the right thing even though I KNOW it's going to bite me in the ass," Ranma said solemnly, "like this one time, I destroyed a spring that might have cured my curse so that Akane, my fiancee, wouldn't get affected. And this other time, I fought this French guy in an eating contest for Akane, since her father promised her to the French guy. That was a HUGE pain, even if the food was pretty good."

She frowned. "Come to think of it, most of those decisions involved Akane, one way or the other. But my point is, I don't think you really made a bad call here. You wanted to try talking to the fight club to get them to back down before this whole thing breaks down into a huge kung-fu battle of the century, and there's nothing wrong with that at all."

Then she shrugged. "I mean, no, it's not what I would've done, but last I checked you were the one put in charge because you knew to do the right thing, and I was the one feared throughout the entire damn school just because I threw a tornado once."

Tsukune sweatdropped. "Well, it only takes one time. Tornadoes are kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, see? You pick up on that sort of thing right away," Ranma pointed out, "how was I supposed to know that?"

Ranma shook off her lingering annoyance. "But anyhow, what I'm trying to say is that you don't need to apologize. We listen to you because we trust you, and that's not gonna change because one of your ideas didn't work out. Nobody's perfect."

Tsukune kept walking in silence after Ranma finished, rubbing the back of his head bashfully before he finally thought of something to say. "Okay, well... You're right. I guess I was feeling a little bit down because everything's been a lot harder than I thought it would be."

"Plus there's being poisoned and tied to the flag pole," Ranma interjected, "that's a little depressing."

"Right, right. But things haven't really been going smoothly, and I've been taking it personally," Tsukune admitted, "I've got to spend more time actually trying to fix things and less time complaining about how it isn't going my way."

Then the younger human smirked slightly. "But that aside, when did you learn to give motivational speeches like that?"

"The runt gave me some good tips for the recruitment thing," Ranma admitted with a grin, "but besides that, I room with a master of giving sappy, overdramatic speeches. I've learned a thing or two."

The two chuckled as they reached their dorm building, halting at the bottom while Tsukune adjusted his makeshift toga.

"Sooo... they actually poisoned me, stripped me, and hung me on the flag pole?" Tsukune asked, a definite note of irritation in his voice.

"Plus they took your wallet, assuming it was in your pants," Ranma pointed out.

"They're lucky I'm against killing out of petty revenge," Tsukune grumbled as he entered the building.

"Are you against maiming out of petty revenge?" Ranma asked as she entered behind him.

"If I was, it would be very hard to be friends with you, Ranma."

The redhead smirked. "Then they're not that lucky."

And so the first day on the job for the New Protection Committee finally came to an end. Each of the members, having successfully completed - or avoided - their duties, went to bed satisfied that they had made the school a better place, or at least managed to get through the day without doing any real work.


The next day Kurumu, probably the one who had most enjoyed carrying out her duties the previous day, stepped into the lobby of their offices happily, ready to start another day of keeping the peace and snuggling her would-be-lover-slash-superior.

"Ah! Kurono. Just who I wanted to see."

Kurumu flinched slightly as she heard Tobaki's voice behind her, and the succubus glanced cautiously over her shoulder. "Why? What's wrong?"

Tobaki had her glasses on, and was looking over a sheet of paper as she walked right past the larger girl.

"Just a few details I need confirmed and wrapped up from yesterday. Follow me, please," Tobaki said as she stepped into her own office.

Kurumu followed warily, and took a seat in the chair in front of the desk as requested while Tobaki sat opposite her.

"So it seems that you made a collection, yesterday," Tobaki said, finally locking gazes with buxom bluette.

Kurumu blinked. "Yeah. I put it on your desk right after I got back," she explained. "Something wrong? Isn't that what we're supposed to do when we get money?" They hadn't been given instructions on that at all, but it made sense to Kurumu. Money went to the treasurer, right?

"You didn't make a mistake, PERSAY," Tobaki said, adjusting her glasses, "but I need paperwork to process the payment."

"Paperwork?" Kurumu asked with a disgusted expression. "But the chemistry club guy just gave me a wad of bills! There was no paperwork!"

"Ah, so it was a club protection fee," the yochlol mumbled as she noted that on her paper, "all right. Do you have a copy of the receipt?"

Kurumu's blank expression was her only response.

"You didn't give the payer a receipt?" Tobaki deadpanned.

"I didn't know we needed to give receipts," Kurumu mumbled, "how do I even do that, exactly?"

Tobaki sighed and pulled out a folder from under her desk, opening it up to reveal a sheath of small paper slips.

"All right, pay attention," the dark-skinned girl said as she pointed a pen to the slip, "this is a receipt form. Everyone with patrol duties gets them in their deployment folder. When a student relinquishes money, you note how much and then mark the appropriate box: either Scheduled Payment, Fee, or Extortion. The final box, Loot, is for anything found on a dead body. Obviously, you don't need to give the payee a copy in that case, but in all cases where the payee actually lives through the transaction you must issue them a copy as well as taking one back here for our records."

Kurumu looked increasingly uncomfortable the longer that the other girl kept talking. "Uh, but Tsukune said no killing, so-"

"So that means that you'll probably be looting fewer bodies, I know, but there may be bodies around from people that you didn't kill yourself," Tobaki pointed out, "anyway, the lines on the bottom are for notes, to write down which club paid up, what kind of fee it was, or the names of particularly wealthy victims so that other Committee members can be informed. You should also use them, as in this case, to divide up portions of the payment."

"Uh, I don't think-" Kurumu started to say, but Tobaki kept on talking right over her.

"The chemistry club gives us 10,000 yen monthly, since they have a good budget. So you mark the Payment Box and note that part down. There's probably a fee in here from something else. Any idea?"

Kurumu was feeling even more distressed, but now it was at least as much from confusion as it was from the idea of looting dead bodies and filing the contents. "Well, I did save him from-"

"Rescue fee. Excellent," Tobaki mumbled, cutting the other girl off again, "that's 2,000 yen, so mark that down... It's a good thing you ran into someone who knew what he was doing, if you really didn't know anything about this."

"Tsukune didn't-" Kurumu started again, only for her words to be brushed aside once more.

"And finally we have an additional 500 yen, which I can only assume is because you're an F-cup," Tobaki said, writing down the appropriate note.

Bam! Kurumu promptly jumped to her feet, slamming her hands onto the table. "Hey! I'm a G!" she shouted, completing her first sentence in some time.

Tobaki blinked, surprised. "Very well, I apologize. Does that command a higher payment?"

Kurumu threw her hands up in exasperation. "You can't be serious! I have to go through all this because someone hands me some money? Did the old guys have to put up with this?"

"They did, although they didn't like the idea," Tobaki explained, adjusting her glasses, "but as treasurer, it is my duty to ensure that all Committee members comply with revenue verification rules. That, at least, hasn't changed with the shift in leadership."

"But the Enforcers used to be nothing but a thinly disguised protection racket!" Kurumu protested.

"That's correct. So what?" Tobaki asked, clasping her hands together on her desk. "Even a protection racket needs proper books to sort out who gets what. Did you think Kuyo dispensed our earnings with a roulette wheel?"

Kurumu groaned as she held her head. "If you really need to take up this much of my time just so we can accept someone's money, I'd rather not collect it in the first place."

Tobaki rolled her eyes. "Please stop being so overdramatic. This much paperwork is no big deal. It's not like I'm asking you to pay taxes."

"Yeah, well some of us have better things to do than fill out useless forms," the succubus said defiantly, crossing her arms under her breasts, "I'm not wasting my time on pointless paperwork."

Tobaki didn't respond immediately, lowering her head to stare down at her desk.

"... Useless? Pointless? Is that what you think?" the yochlol whispered.

Kurumu's hackles rose as she felt a sense of imminent danger. "Er... Well..."

Tobaki suddenly looked up, and Kurumu flinched as she saw that one of the treasurer's eyes had turned blood red, and seemed to be getting bigger as it glared hatefully at the succubus. "Let us discuss the merits of proper documentation in greater detail, shall we?" Tobaki asked, her voice suddenly deep and gravelly.

"So then the prince kid grabs Akane and tosses her into this rail cart, and I had to chase him down," Ranma said as he and Tsukune entered the lobby, with the latter listening attentively to the former, "I still don't know where he thought he was getting away to; that track only went down to the spring, which is where I wanted to go anyway."

"And then you beat Prince Toma and rescued your fiancee?" Tsukune asked eagerly.

"Really, he was already beaten by then. But because he tried to run, I-"

"EEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Ranma and Tsukune stopped dead at the horrified scream, and they both turned toward the origin.

"That... Was that Kurumu?" Tsukune asked, his eyes widening.

"It came from Tobaki's office!" Ranma said as his face paled.

Both of them bolted for the door, though Tsukune (rather conspicuously) arrived first, throwing it open and almost jumping into the room.

"Kurumu! Are you okay?" Tsukune asked.

"Aim for the eye! It's the only part of her that feels pain!" Ranma shouted from behind him.

Tobaki stared back at them, one eyebrow raised. She was in her elven form, had her hands clasped together on her desk, and was quite obviously not in the midst of violence. "Yes? Can I help you, Captain?"

Tsukune's attention quickly shifted to Kurumu. The blue-haired girl was huddled in the chair facing Tobaki's desk, hugging her knees to her chest with a look of shock and horror on her face, as well as a fair amount of viscous yellow goo.

"Kurumu! Is she okay?" Tsukune demanded.

"Of course," Tobaki said, as if it was a silly question. "Miss Kurono and I were simply discussing the importance of proper recordkeeping procedure. Isn't that right, Miss Kurono?"

Kurumu nodded her head rapidly, spattering some of the goop onto the carpet flooring.

"I think we understand each other," Tobaki said, smiling pleasantly. "Thank you for your time, Miss Kurono. You may leave now."

Tsukune yelped as the succubus practically pounced on him from the chair, clamping onto his side without a single word.

"Oh-kay... Tobaki, listen, I have something to say to the committee, so could you join us in the lobby? The others should be here soon," Tsukune asked as Kurumu shuddered.

"Yes, Captain!" the yochlol chirped as she took off her glasses, stepping out from behind her desk and walking out the door as her fellow committee members gave her a wide berth.


After she had stepped out, Tsukune took out a handkerchief and offered it to Kurumu awkwardly. "You've got some... Uh... on your cheek..."

The succubus took the handkerchief gratefully, her expression starting to return to normal.

"Did she get you bad?" Ranma asked.

"I'm not... sure," Kurumu admitted. "I barely saw them coming, and then..." She stared at Ranma in awe. "It was kind of like being groped; you know, that repelling, scuzzy sort of feeling? Only it was my thoughts, rather than my breasts. Is that what happened to you?"

Ranma grimaced. "No. She mostly stuck to normal groping against me."

"You mean with the-" Kurumu started to ask before Ranma cut her off.

"Actually, can we not talk about this any more? I'd like that," Ranma grumbled, casting a wary glance at Tsukune.

"Well, as long as you're okay, I have to go get something from my office. I'll meet you in the lobby a little later, okay?" Tsukune said as Kurumu reluctantly let go of him.


Kurumu's expression lightened further once Tsukune was out of earshot. "What's the matter? Don't want to talk about getting jumped by a cute little elf in front of your best buddy?" she taunted with a smirk.

Ranma grimaced as he turned toward the exit. "Knock it off, Kurumu. I just don't want to talk about having to fight off Tobaki. I'd think you would totally understand that now."

"Not really," Kurumu disagreed, shrugging, "I'm not that worried about Tsukune thinking I'm weak."

Ranma winced, and Kurumu giggled at the response, her recent trauma already forgotten. Really, she had great respect for Ranma, but the martial artist's heroic bravado was just too much for her to take seriously sometimes.

Pinching the cursed boy's cheek, she smiled brightly as she said, "Aw, don't pout like that! I think it's adorable that you never want to talk about your weaknesses in front of Tsukune because you think he'll respect you less!"

Ranma silently endured her teasing before lightly slapping her hand away. "That's not it, okay? I just want to forget that whole meeting with Tobaki ever happened."

"Oh, really?" Kurumu asked, blinking as she tapped her chin. "Well then, does he know you're afraid of cats?"

"Grk!" Ranma stopped just as he had opened the office door, and quickly closed it again. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

"It's a little obvious," Kurumu deadpanned, "just because Kanade doesn't talk to anyone but you doesn't mean that the rest of us don't know what you two are up to when you're together."

Then Kurumu frowned. "Finding that out was really disappointing, by the way. Come on, the girl obviously wants you! Give her some sugar!"

Ranma flushed badly. "I can't! I'm engaged!"

"You're engaged to THREE women. Is a little fling really out of the question?" the succubus asked, looking genuinely interested in the topic.

"YES. You don't know these women," Ranma grumbled, shuddering, "if anything happens at all, they'll definitely find out. And then..."

After Ranma trailed off, he and Kurumu were suddenly jolted to attention by a shout from outside the office.

"OI! WOULD YOU TWO STOP DISCUSSING SAOTOME'S LACK OF A SEX LIFE AND GET IN HERE? WE'RE ALL WAITING FOR YOU!" Kouma shouted, prompting Ranma to once again swing the door open and glare out at the assembled students.


Kouma glared right back as he crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him stood Moka, Chopper, Yukari, Kana and Keito, their expressions ranging from discreet embarrassment to intense interest.

Ranma was silent for several seconds as they stared at each other, until he finally stepped out into the lobby, mumbling "You have pretty good hearing."

Kouma snorted as he finally dropped his glare. "ALL of my senses are pretty good... Well, except my sense of taste."

"Because of the smoking or because dogs will eat anything?" Kurumu asked curiously.


Before Kouma could get angry and begin the usual cycle of teasing and enraged retorts, Tsukune re-entered the lobby from a different office, immediately seizing the attention of his subordinates. Tobaki followed behind him, looking somewhat confused.

"Hello everyone, and welcome to your second day as members of the Protection Committee," the young human began, trying to look as confident and authoritative as possible. "Today before we get to work, I'd like to share something with you all."

"It's not the take from yesterday's patrol, is it?" Tobaki asked, raising an eyebrow, "I mean, you didn't say anything to-"

Tsukune held up a hand, instantly silencing the dark-skinned elf.

"When I took over as Captain, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to turn the Protection Committee around, even if I was in charge and we got all new... well, MOSTLY new volunteers," Tsukune began, pulling out a manila folder from under his arm, "so when the student council president came to me with several reforms for the committee, I suggested one of my own, something to help the students feel more at ease with us and also help us stay on-track as we make the school a safer place."

"Oh, Goddess below, what tripe," Keito hissed under her breath. She couldn't help but notice, though, that the others were paying strict attention, and that Moka and Kurumu almost looked enraptured.

"To that end," Tsukune continued, "the student council has been taking complaints, compliments, and suggestions straight from the students in regards to the Protection Committee. Even after one day, it seems that plenty of students had something to say about us!"

"That's a wonderful idea, Tsukune!" Moka said, clapping her hands together.

Kouma seemed less sure as he glanced at the folder in the captain's hands. "So, wait... did we get mostly praise, or complaints?"

Tsukune smiled as he opened the folder up. "Well, President Hokuto suggested that the majority were compliments, though I haven't read them yet," Tsukune admitted, "I thought that we should all look over them together so that we can directly and immediately deal with any issues and so that everybody benefits from any mistakes any of you may have made," he reasoned. "And I'm sure there will be some mistakes. I mean, none of us are perfect."

"Well, most of us aren't," Yukari corrected as she wrapped her arm around Moka's and sighed blissfully.

"Anyway, I'm going to begin, now," Tsukune said as he pulled out the first file.


"Man, I didn't know we were going to be judged on this," Kouma muttered as he fidgeted, wishing he could have a cigarette while in the lobby.

"So, I guess this is what you meant when you said that the students are our boss," Kurumu said to Ranma.

He shrugged. "Well, yeah, though I didn't know he was taking it quite so literally."


"All right, here's the first comment," Tsukune said before he cleared his throat, "I'd like to congratulate the New Protection Committee on the great strides you've made in policing and dealing with clubs here on campus. I was approached by the lovely Miss Kurono, and she resolved an altercation with a thug extorting money from me."

Kurumu almost glowed as Tsukune read over the comment, beaming as the others applauded lightly.

Tsukune continued reading, although he looked extremely satisfied already. "She drove off the miscreant, and then handled the club's monthly payment in a professional manner that completely respected my personal dignity."

He blinked. "Monthly payment? What's that about?"

"The various clubs pay dues to the Protection Committee in order to avoid any 'unfortunate accidents' befalling their membership or activities," Tobaki said, snapping her glasses on as she quickly shifted into treasurer mode.

Tsukune gaped briefly, and then went back to reading the comment. "Besides the timely interruption of my being mugged, I also like how Miss Kurono didn't attempt to solicit any additional payment from me or my club, and let me leave without hurting me even after I touched her boobs."

Kurumu started to blush as the applause grew louder. "Aw, it wasn't that big a deal..."

"Good job! Rake in that cash!" Yukari said brightly.

"Nice restraint. I'm impressed you didn't carve up the twerp," Ranma admitted.

"I suppose that there's nothing wrong with extorting money NICELY from the students, as long as we get our due," Keito admitted reluctantly.

"No, no, no! This isn't right!" Tsukune said suddenly, causing all the applause to cease instantly. "We can't accept money from clubs just to do our jobs! That's extortion! It's the same as what that bully was trying to do!"

Most of the Committee members seemed surprised by that idea, although Yukari was quick to offer a counterpoint.

"Actually, it's significantly different from mugging, as we offer a service for which there is definite demand."

"But we're supposed to do it without being paid!" Tsukune protested.

"From an economic standpoint, it's ridiculous to expect us to exert our efforts and risk our own well-being without payment," Tobaki noted before pulling her glasses off and slipping them into her pocket, "but you're the boss! No more club protection payments and service fees, then."

Tsukune frowned at the obvious expressions of disappointment on some of his subordinates' faces, though thankfully not Ranma's. "We're working to make this school a better place, not turn a profit! Our students' safety doesn't come with a price tag!"

Tsukune noticed Kurumu wincing badly at his chastisement, and his expression softened. "Well, I know you did your best, Kurumu, and I am proud of you for saving the guy. You didn't know... I guess."

The succubus smiled weakly, and rubbed the back of her head.

"Let's move on to the next comment," Tsukune said as he pulled the next paper out of the folder. "This one says: I am very happy with the establishment of a proper service desk where we can give complaints and open investigations. It's far better than the old system of hunting down an Enforcer and trying to convince them that whatever crime was done to us inconveniences them, too."

Tsukune sweatdropped before he continued, "When I reached the front of the line at the service desk, there was a pretty girl there to deal with me. She made eye contact the whole time and waited for me to finish explaining my issue before admitting that she hadn't been listening at all and sending me away. It's a huge relief having someone to pretend to listen to my problem, and without any risk of being beaten for my impudence!"

As Tsukune's face darkened, there was more light applause from his subordinates.

"Good job!"

"Let's hear it for eye contact!"

"Where the heck is Shirayuki, anyway?"

"She's hiding behind the door behind Tsukune. Come out and take a bow, Mizore!"

A head of mussy hair poked out of Tsukune's office, and Mizore shyly peeked into the room with a bright blush on her face.

Moka grimaced as Tsukune started rubbing his forehead. "Sorry. I couldn't stay to help her the whole time."

"It's... fine," Tsukune mumbled reluctantly, "you have your own job." Then he glanced behind him at the bashful snow woman. "Mizore, in the future you should try to actually listen to their issues and open up actual cases for us to work on."

"That sounds like so much work..." Mizore grumbled as she leaned against the door frame.

"Moving on," Tsukune said with considerably less enthusiasm now, "this one looks like a complaint: I object to the appointment of Miss Akashiya to the student council."

There were several raised eyebrows at that, and Moka winced as Tsukune continued.

"Her presence is an obvious and cheap attempt to influence the council with sex appeal, and her presence is an unnecessary distraction for our male members, who spend otherwise productive time staring at her or trying to peek at her panties."

Moka promptly gasped as her face flushed. "I THOUGHT it was weird that they kept losing their erasers under the table!"

As Tsukune stared glumly at the paper, Chopper tapped Ranma on the shoulder. "Hey, should we clap this time?"

"I don't think so," Ranma whispered back, "I mean, it is a complaint, right?"

"Maybe we should clap for Tsukune, for thinking to manipulate the student council with Moka's sex appeal?" Yukari suggested.

"That's not why I assigned her there!" Tsukune snapped, crushing the paper in his hand. "I'm not trying to manipulate the student council!"

"Well, if you ever change your mind, it's nice to know that we always have the option," Yukari reasoned.

"I don't... We didn't..." Tsukune dropped the crumpled document onto the floor as he sighed in defeat. "Never mind. Let's look at the next one."

He pulled the next paper out of the folder, although his expression indicated that he already regretted this exercise.

"This one says: I really like the new flag that the Pro-"

Ssshrp! Tsukune immediately tore the paper in half, his cheeks red as he balled it up.

"Kouma, incinerate this, please," Tsukune said through clenched teeth before tossing it toward the hellhound.

Kouma resisted the urge to laugh and ignored the curious expressions from the girls, catching the paper ball in one hand before squeezing it tightly, opening his palm a moment later to reveal nothing but white ash.

"There's a flag? Do we have a flag now?" Kurumu asked as Tsukune picked out the next paper, ignoring her.

"Today a scuffle broke out in the hall between a fight club guy and a senior, and within seconds a member of the Protection Committee was on the scene! It was very impressive the way he corralled everyone away from the danger zone, and when he started a betting pool on the fight, he offered fair odds and even paid out properly!"

Tsukune let his arms drop as he glared at his subordinates. "Who?"

Kouma hesitantly put his hand up. "That was me, actually..."

Just as before, the others started clapping, but they stopped promptly when Tsukune threw the file on the floor. "Stop clapping! This isn't praiseworthy! You do NOT start taking bets when students are fighting!"

Most of them were quite surprised by the reaction, if only because it was so rare to see Tsukune honestly mad, but surprise turned to fear for many of them as Tobaki stepped forward, her glasses perched on her nose and her expression much darker than her captain's.

"Putting aside any possible neglect of your duties... you took or dispensed money from a betting pool while on-duty and DIDN'T REPORT IT?"

Kouma's hair started to stand up as one of Tobaki's eyes turned red, but thankfully Tsukune interrupted the demon's chastisement so he could continue his own.

"No, Tobaki. We're not going to put aside the neglect. Rather, that's the main issue, here," the young human insisted.

Tobaki frowned, but relented, the crimson in her eye draining away as she stepped back. "I see. Whatever you say, Captain."

"Wait, it wasn't like that!" Kouma spoke up, trying to defend himself. "Aono, you said no killing, right?"

"Yes. You couldn't break up a fight without killing someone?" Tsukune asked skeptically, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well, I COULD, but as you know, my powers can be pretty destructive," Kouma reasoned, "plus, I figured that your 'no murder' rule meant that you preferred non-violent solutions whenever possible!"

Tsukune started to cool down at the hellhound's logic; both points were true. "That's correct..."

"These guys looked pretty tough, but it didn't seem like they were going to be putting holes in the wall or summoning tornadoes or anything like that. So I figured it would be best to get all the bystanders to a safe distance and let the pair of troublemakers finish their fight rather than risk turning it into a free-for-all. Then I'd just have to subdue the winner, who would already be tuckered out from the battle."

Tsukune nodded slowly.

"So... I was doing that, and then happened to say out loud who I thought was gonna win. And then the girl behind me suddenly shouted that there was no way her boyfriend was going to lose, and some other guy laughed and said that he'd put money on it. And... well, one thing led to another," Kouma finished rather lamely, lowering his head in embarrassment.

Tsukune's frown returned. "I see. Did you arrest the students who were fighting? I don't remember being told that we had taken anyone in yesterday."

Kouma shrugged. "Well, I was GOING to, but the moment the fight was over all the winners swarmed me, demanding their money right away. It's like they were afraid I was gonna run off with it!"

"That's a trust issue. It will probably improve with time," Yukari suggested, much to Tsukune's chagrin.

"Yeah, well, by the time I finished handing out the winnings, the guy who won the fight was gone," Kouma admitted, shrugging apologetically.

"What about the loser?" Moka asked.

"He'd already had both his legs broken and his spleen torn out and eaten in front of him. I figured he'd been punished enough," Kouma mumbled, "I dragged him to the nurse's office and called it a day."

"WHAT? And you just stood there while that happened and... and..." Tsukune massaged his forehead as he tried to reign in his urge to scream. "Okay, Kouma... It seems at least that you understand that what you did was wrong, so I expect that you'll learn from this experience on your own and won't let it happen again. Both not intervening and making bets on the outcome."

Tsukune felt a tug on his shirt sleeve, and his face darkened as he looked behind him. Tobaki was biting her lip pathetically as she stared at him imploringly, looking extremely upset as tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

Tsukune sighed before turning back to Kouma. "And although I don't want you doing anything that involves making or losing money on duty, if you do for some reason, make sure you follow the procedures for reporting it."

"Including receipts! Make sure you give out receipts!" Tobaki shouted desperately.

"Yeah, sure. You do that," Tsukune mumbled, suddenly seeming very tired as he closed up the folder. "Well, I'm sure you all need to get to your duties, so go on, and remember what I've told you."

Chopper blinked. "Eh? But it looked like there were more comments. You aren't going to read the rest of 'em?"

"No, I think I'll review the rest on my own," the young human said somewhat bitterly as he turned around and entered his office. A moment later Mizore dashed out, looking embarrassed and annoyed.


"All right, you heard the man! Back to work!" Ranma said as he started to follow Tsukune to his office with Moka behind him. "Let's try and do a little better out there, all right?"

Ranma stopped to pat Mizore on the head (eliciting a dreamy sigh from her and a sharp glare from Kana), and then entered the captain's office alongside Moka.


"Okay, so that could have gone better," Ranma said, scratching the back of his head, "still, at least the student body seems to like us, right? That's progress."

"That's right! We can fix this!" Moka chimed in, looking determined.

Tsukune dropped down in the chair behind his desk, his brow furrowed. "Yeah, I know, but..." He sighed. "What am I doing wrong, here? What am I supposed to do from here on out?"

He looked more frustrated as he picked up the folder full of student commentary and stared hard at it, as if it might yield the answers he was looking for rather than several irrelevant and misguided opinions about his department.

"I have to admit, this situation is still a little surreal to me," Tsukune said glumly, "I've never led anyone before. And suddenly I'm trying to control a bunch of monsters?"

"Not as easy as you thought?" a smug and distinctly unwelcome voice said from the doorway.

Tsukune groaned as Keito stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts and a slight smile on her face. "Keito. I don't suppose you have any useful advice to offer?" the young human asked bitterly, "I mean, you were the closest thing to a vice captain under Kuyo, right?"

The spider woman grinned. "Why, I wouldn't dream of telling you whether your decisions are right or wrong, Captain Aono," Keito drawled, "because your decisions ARE absolute, you know. Kuyo understood the power he wielded, and did so with resolve and-"

WHAM! Ranma suddenly slammed the door shut in her face, eliciting a pained yelp from Keito a moment later.

"You realize that it would be wrong for me to thank you for that," Tsukune said evenly.

"You're welcome anyway," Ranma said, slipping his hands into his pockets.

"Anyway, annoying as she is, does Keito have a point?" Tsukune asked. "I guess it's true that I keep treating everyone like humans... Maybe that's the problem?"

"That's not true!" Moka suddenly shouted, startling the two humans. "Treating everyone with respect and kindness isn't just for humans, and there's nothing wrong with it! You listen to everyone and make the best decision you can based on what you know is right! Just because some people don't care about right and wrong doesn't mean you made any mistakes!"

Tsukune was quite surprised by the amount of heat in Moka's voice as she defended him. "Well, that's good... But whether it's my fault or not, we still have a basic problem that our members don't seem to know what they're doing."

Moka sighed as she scratched her chin. "Yeah... It's like they know what their job is, but don't really understand the idea behind it. So Kouma and Kurumu know they're supposed to stop students from beating each other up, but it doesn't occur to them that it's wrong to make money from the situation."

Tsukune raised an eyebrow.

"Man, why don't they have a class here for basic human morals?" Ranma asked, "I mean, some of the students don't seem to get why it's even bad to kill or force yourself on someone."

Tsukune raised his other eyebrow.

"There is, actually, but it's an elective," Moka admitted regrettably. "Most monsters don't want to take it, either because it has a stigma as a remedial class or because it means sharing a classroom with some of the most violent and capricious students in the school."

Ranma grimaced. "Ah, right. I definitely wouldn't want to take a class with thirty Tobakis."

"Actually, I think you could benefit from the lessons as much as she would," Moka drawled.

"What? Hey!" Ranma glared at the vampiress as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't compare me to her! That's not cool!"

Moka seemed to space out for a moment, blinking vacantly before her cheeks reddened. "What? S-Sorry! I didn't mean that! It was the Rosario talking!"

'Huh. I'm surprised that worked,' mumbled the dark voice from within Moka's head, sounding amused. 'Stop that! Don't ever do that!' Moka snapped in her mind, eliciting an annoyed mental snort in response.

"Of course..." Tsukune suddenly mumbled, standing up and surprising the other two. "That would work!"

"What would?" Moka asked.

"Rather than trying to teach them day by day and rule by rule, instead we should try a proper training program!" Tsukune said, a new note of excitement and confidence in his voice. "We'll teach them right and wrong from the ground up! Formalized lessons! Philosophy study! Training simulations!"

"Martial arts practice!" Ranma added, looking just as excited as he gripped his hands into fists.

Moka sweatdropped. "Ah, Ranma, fighting skills aren't exactly what we're missing in this Committee."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "That might sound convincing coming from someone other than you."

"You want me to snap your neck as an example?" Moka said with a glare, causing Tsukune to recoil in surprise.

Moka immediately flushed and looked down at her chest. "Stop that! I'm serious!"

'Hee hee hee! That's kind of fun!'

Ranma gave the vampiress a wary glance, wondering if Kana was playing a ventriloquist prank again and choosing to ignore the outburst. "Anyway, we have that break coming up, right? The one where most of the clubs take trips to the real world? Why don't we do a training camp?"

Tsukune snapped his fingers. "It's perfect! We can take time to lay down the expectations for everyone's jobs and teach them how to do it, and without neglecting the school in the meantime!"

"And I can plan a training schedule for everyone!" Ranma said, sounding just as excited.

"And we can sing songs around a campfire and have pillow fights and braid each others' hair!" Keito said, clasping her hands together as her eyes shined disingenuously.

"... Keito. You're back," Tsukune said gratingly, his good mood evaporating. "Did you have a reason for bothering us besides sarcasm?"

"Not that dumping some cold water on your giddy little fantasy world isn't enough reason to interrupt you," Keito said with undisguised contempt as the others glared at her, "but I thought you might like to know that Professor Richard is here."

Ranma groaned as Tsukune tensed. "Here? Why? What's he doing?" the latter asked.

"Currently he's trying to get Shirayuki to respond to his concerns in a meaningful manner," Keito said, running a hand through her hair, "when that fails, I expect she'll be vaporized. I thought you might like some forewarning, is all."

Keito's reflexes were just good enough for her to spring out of the way before Ranma trampled her as he shot out the door.

Tsukune gaped briefly, and then grudgingly nodded. "That's... very thoughtful of you. Thank you, Keito."

"I live to serve," the spider woman drawled, bowing mockingly before her captain.

"Come on, Moka. I don't think Ranma will need any help stopping Professor Richard, but I'm kind of wondering what he'd come to us for in the first place."

"Right. I'm right behind you, Tsukune," the vampiress said, casting one last stare at Keito before she followed the human boy out.


Keito waited until they were out of the room, and then walked up to an air vent on the wall up near the ceiling. Walking right up the wall as easily as if it were the ground, she knelt down underneath the vent before opening it up and slipping into it, her additional arms sprouting from her torso to aid her as she began her crawl.

"All right, Aono. Let's see how you deal with a real threat. The first test begins," she hissed quietly, her foot curling out and pulling the vent closed behind her.

"I couldn't help but notice, young lady, that you seem to be entirely occupied with your drawings, there," Richard said amiably as he stood over the New Enforcers' service desk.

"Uh-huh. Got it," Mizore mumbled, doodling on the back of a case form with a weathered pencil and looking totally uninterested in the warlock's presence.

"I actually consider myself something of an artist, as well," Richard continued, puffing up his chest as he inspected his fingernails, "if you wouldn't mind, perhaps I can demonstrate for you? I'd consider it... tutoring in the liberal studies," the warlock finished.

"Absolutely. Sure thing," Mizore mumbled as she flipped the pencil around and did some erasing.

"Oh, wonderful!" Richard said as one of his hands was suddenly engulfed in shadow, the dark energies coalescing into a fizzling triangular blade. "All right, then! First, I'll just need to see what color blood you have!"

Thwack! A desperate snap kick bent Richard's arm at the elbow as the blade descended, it's energies hissing as it slashed far short of the apathetic young woman.

Thud! Mizore blinked as the desk over her legs suddenly split and collapsed inward, taking her doodle with it, which had likewise been split in two. Bewildered, she finally looked up to see what had happened.

She was not displeased to see Richard standing back and looking put out as Ranma stood near the collapsed desk, looking absolutely livid.

"Ranma... You saved me again..." Mizore said as her face flushed and she pressed her hands against her cheeks.

"Yeah, no problem," Ranma grumbled, "although you really need to take this job a little more seriously, Mizore."

"Whatever you say," the snow woman said dreamily.

Richard shook his hand as the black energies dissipated. "Ah, Saotome. Good to see you. How's the new position treating you?" Richard said conversationally.

"It was a lot easier before you showed up," the pigtailed boy groused. "Drop the flames, Prof."

Richard pouted as he pulled his other arm from behind his back, revealing a fireball hovering above his palm. With a twitch of his fingers, the spell was undone.

"And now the rest," Ranma demanded.

This time Richard just raised an eyebrow. "Pardon? I'm all out of arms, you know. Well, I mean, I do have spares since that last incident of you tearing these ones off, but those are in-"

"The trash, since I tossed them the last time I was going through the teachers' offices," Ranma interrupted, "but I meant the flames on your hood."

Richard blinked. "What? My hood is on fire?"

Sure enough, the warlock's clothing was lit aflame and belching smoke, and had been since he first entered and tried to get Mizore's attention.

"You mean you didn't notice?" Mizore asked, scooting back slightly. She found the heat almost unbearable now that she had been pulled out of her daydream.

"All right, what's going on here?" Tsukune demanded as he entered the lobby, with Moka behind him. "Professor Richard, do you need something?"

"Ah, Aono, you're apparently just the man I needed to see," the warlock said, "as a matter of fact, I do have a bit of trouble."

"I can see that," Tsukune deadpanned. "Moka?"

Moka wordlessly detached a fire extinguisher from the wall, and promptly aimed it at the burning teacher.

FSHOOOOOOOOSH! The warlock was blasted full-on in the face by a jet of extinguisher foam, the fires on his robes guttering instantly.

Tsukune nodded in satisfaction as Moka put the extinguisher down. "Thank you, Moka. And please mention to the student council at the next meeting that they should have more frequent extinguisher checks and replacements. They've really been coming in handy lately."

Moka smiled happily in response before Tsukune turned back to Richard, who was busy trying to wipe all the foam off.

"Well Professor, it's my understanding that in the past the Protection Committee used to charge fees for performing their duties or just acts of basic courtesy. You'll be happy to know that as captain I've put an end to that. It's been our pleasure to help you today, and we wish a good day. Goodbye!" Tsukune said pleasantly, cocking his head slightly to one side while he clasped his hands behind his back.

Richard nodded. "Well, that's quite admirable of you, Aono. Out of gratitude, I suppose I'll only kill one of your subordinates."

The warlock promptly aimed a palm at Moka, who gasped in fright as Ranma cocked a fist back.

Richard hesitated, and then shook his head as he let his hand drop. "No, wait. That's not why I came here. I didn't even realize I was still on fire."

There was considerable relief from the officers of the Protection Committee, though Tsukune didn't relish the idea of having to help the psychotic magus further. "So what's the problem, then?"

Richard scratched his chin silently before turning toward Ranma. "Saotome, you know Saffron, right? Little kid, pink hair, bad attitude, wings?"

"Yeah. What about him?" Ranma asked.

Tsukune looked surprised. "You know Saffron, Ranma? I didn't know that."

"Oh, yeah. We go way back. Back to the exploding mountain that landed me here," Ranma deadpanned, "what about the little jerk?"

Richard hesitated for another long moment, scratching at the bottom of his cowl. "Do you know anything about him spontaneously aging a few decades and increasing fifty-fold in sheer power? Ring any bells?"

As the others looked confused, Ranma facepalmed. "Oh, God damn it..."

"Are you expressing frustration, or is that literally what happened?" Richard asked curiously. "It wouldn't be the first time. God is a tricky bastard when he wants to be."

As Ranma growled through clenched teeth, Tsukune frowned. "Ranma? What's wrong? Did something happen to Saffron?"

"Yes. Something definitely happened to Saffron," the pigtailed boy said, glaring at Richard. "Care to explain what happened to Saffron, Prof?"

The warlock looked offended. "Are you implying that I took him hostage on a whim and then experimented on him until I undid the crucial magical bonds that kept his power restrained and prevented him from enacting hot, burning revenge against all who've done him harm?"

Ranma blinked. "Well, I-"

"And then, after a series of running battles in which I proved offensively superior but unable to completely overcome his accursed regeneration and aura resistance, finally managed to get away when he happened to be distracted by some other insolent fool that had attacked him in the past, and then retreated?"

"Did he-" Tsukune began, only to be cut off.

"And THEN, after making this pointless mistake and retreating while others suffered from my hubris, that I came crawling to YOU, an assortment of worthless lesser beings, to clean up my mess and protect me from retribution? Is that what you're trying to say?" Richard said, his voice booming as if projected from a heavy speaker system as his eyes flared white with unholy power.

Ranma and Tsukune glanced at each other, looked back at Richard, and then nodded their heads.

"Yup, that's it."

"That's what were accusing you of."

Richard's eyes dimmed, and he scratched his cheek. "Really? How did you figure all that out so quickly?"

"Not to interrupt Professor Richard's latest comedy sketch," Moka said, raising a hand, "but doesn't everything he just said imply that there's some kind of powerful monster on the loose? Shouldn't we go find him?"

"Saffron's not just some powerful monster," Ranma said, crossing his arms over his chest, "he's the kind that wipes out towns and stuff. We won't have to wait long until he gives away his position."

A creaking noise from Yukari's office attracted his attention as the door opened, and the young witch poked her head out.

"Just thought you guys should know, the entire south wing is on fire," Yukari said.

"See? What'd I-" Ranma stopped suddenly as he paled. "Wait! The cafeteria is in that wing!"

"Yeah, I'll talk to Tobaki about getting some take out for lunch. Later," Yukari said, closing the door.

"See? This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about," Tsukune said, shaking his head, "shouldn't she be more worried?"

"Shouldn't you be, as well?" Moka asked, somewhat perplexed by how calmly Tsukune was taking the present emergency.

"Oh, I am. I'm also terrified," Tsukune admitted, droplets of sweat creeping down his forehead, "but I suppose we have to go take care of this, don't we?"

"Let me know how it turns out," Richard said as he opened a window and started to climb out, "and if you happen to speak to the boy before he incinerates you, please inform him that this incident WILL be reflected in the addendum notes on his report card for this semester. Farewell!"

"So, what was your name, again? I have to admit, that with the rush of power, the adrenaline, the sheer GLEE of seeing your enemies slowly turning ash around you... it's gone to my head a bit. I've completely forgotten."

Saffron spoke converstaionally as he scratched his head with his left hand.

His right hand was gripped around the throat of a schoolgirl, who thrashed helplessly as she was held aloft by the blazing talons that had replaced his fingers. Great golden wings spread out behind him, although they didn't move in order to keep the Phoenix king aloft, merely spreading wide over the massive updraft of hot air from Saffron's own aura.

"K... Ki... Kimiko," she finally managed to gasp out, her face already covered with streaks of burnt flesh.

"Ah! Kimiko, yes! That IS the name of the mermaid wench that DRAINED me of every shred of life in the wading pool!" Saffron said, looking happy about the circumstances. "That's good! All of you fish-tailed whores look alike to me, after all, and it would be SO embarrassing to murder the wrong one. Or was it ones? I was quite delirious at the time, so I suppose some of your friends might have joined in near the end!"

"You... g... got... better," the girl gasped out desperately.

"Oh, you're quite right," Saffron said with a smile, "but you know, I'm not that familiar with other species. Do your kind get better after being killed?"

Saffron's claws tightened, preventing the hapless girl from answering.

"Well, let's learn about it! This is a school, after all!" the Phoenix king said brightly as a fireball appeared in his free hand.

FWOOOM!


Kouma gave a disgusted grunt as he and Chopper peeked around a hallway corner, behind a blazing pile of janitorial equipment.

"Man, this is just like my junior high graduation ceremony all over again," Kouma mumbled.

"With all the fire, or all the murder?" Chopper asked, raising an eyebrow.

"The fire. Though there were plenty of people burned to death during the afterparty."

The two brawlers watched as bits of burning flesh and charred bone rained down onto the sparse pile of burnt bodies that decorated the burning auditorium. Fire was scattered everywhere, having caught in a few specific places rather than being a single giant conflagration. There was also a fair bit of smoke, but the sheer size of the auidtorium combined with the fact that all the windows had been blown out had kept it from building up too quickly thus far.

"So... Should we being doing something?" Chopper asked. "I feel like this is one of those situations that the captain would let us go ahead and kill the bad guy. And one of those situations that he'd get mad at us for doin' nothing."

"Yeah, I'm on board with that," Kouma grumbled, "but how, exactly? I'm all for a good scrap, and it's not like the fire will really hurt me, but this guy's a tad more invincible than I like my opponents. I'd like to have a plan first."

"Eh, he don't look so tough," Chopper said, gripping his hands together as he grinned.

"I thought trolls were bad with fire," Kouma said, turning toward the larger monster.

"Not as bad as other monsters are with having their ribs caved in," the troll replied.

KABOOM! Both of the New Enforcers flinched back as the barricade in front of them exploded, showering them with burning wood and smoke.

"Oh, pardon me," Saffron said, the smoke parting before him in a rush as the Phoenix king strode toward the pair, "I couldn't help but overhear how you were planning to stop me, and I find that topic just FASCINATING."

Chopper stood up, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "Well, we can't just stand by and do nothin' right?" He tapped the cloth armband that was wrapped around his wrist. "I gotta job to do, here."

Kouma remained silent as he took up a boxing stance, wondering at their chances in this encounter and cursing his luck that he'd end up fighting some kind of immortal fire creature on his second day on patrol.

"Very well, peons, go ahead and-" Saffron snapped his head to the side suddenly. "Just a moment."

The distraction apparently came from some creature with long, curved talons and hard gray skin stumbling through the flames behind Saffron, looking confused.

"Hello? Anybody here? What's all the-WOAH! What's with the body count?" it exclaimed, stopping before the pile of smouldering corpses.

Saffron was silent for a moment, then suddenly snapped, "Takeda Minome, class 2-B. Killed me when I wouldn't surrender my lunch money."

The monster whirled toward the voice, its small black eyes popping. "Eh? Oh, hey, it's Pinky! Dude, when did you get so-"

FWEEN! A laser-like beam of white-hot flame speared straight through the newcomer, who staggered forward for a moment as smoke poured out of the hole in its back.

Thwud! Saffron turned back to the two Protection Committee members, looking quite pleased. "Sorry about that. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Just in case it makes any difference, I just want to point out that we've never hurt you before," Kouma said, his body still locked in a classic boxer's stance.

"It doesn't make that much difference," Saffron admitted, spreading his talons wide as his wings billowed out behind him.


Chopper was about to launch an ill-fated charge when a sudden cry of surprise came from the other side of the auditorium, once again seizing Saffron's attention lest one of his many tormentors escape.

He was pleasantly surprised to see Ranma Saotome pushing aside a burning support beam and less pleasantly surprised to see Tsukune Aono cautiously approaching as best he could among the scattered flames, a rag held over his mouth and an unfamiliar girl behind him.

"Saffron, what are you doing? This is a massacre!" Tsukune cried before he started coughing, finding the smoke too thick to talk easily.

"I think you just answered your own question," the Phoenix king said with a shrug, "in any case, this environment seems to be dangerous for you, Aono."

"Is the smoke that bad?" Kouma asked, his own breathing not hindered by the soot and ash.

"Actually, I was referring to his proximity to Saotome," Saffron admitted as he aimed a palm at the pigtailed boy. "I know it makes little difference at this point, but I blame you for this, Saotome. This nightmare existence here at Youkai Academy is because of your petty stubborness."

"Actually, it's mostly because you're a jerk," Ranma said, coughing briefly into his hand. "But either way, isn't trying to kill me what really caused all this? You should know by now that never works."

"If at first you don't succeed..." Saffron began, his golden claws blazing brighter and brighter, "use more fire."

"Listen to me!" Tsukune cried. "You have to stop this!"

"No. I will not," Saffron said simply, although the flames around his claws started to weaken, "I am leaving this place, Aono. But first I will raze this facility to the ground, and see it mixed with the ashes of those who have slighted me."

His eyes narrowed. "You have shown me courtesy, and for that I would see you spared. But Saotome must suffer for his insolence."

Ranma was about to say something sarcastic in response, but he stopped as he saw someone new emerge from the auditoriun entrance opposite them, and behind Saffron.

"Don't you see?" Tsukune said, sweat now running freely down his brow as he stepped closer to the Phoenix king, "This sort of revenge only feeds more hatred! If you kill people for abusing you, you're no better than them!"

There was a long silence after he finished, broken only by the occasional cough from one of the people who didn't breathe smoke and the light crunch of burnt wood underfoot.

"Yes. And? Are you done?" Saffron finally asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He means to say that you should strive to be better than them," Moka explained.

"I am better than them," Saffron said with a sneer, "they're dead."

"I meant prove you're better than them in a way that will let them learn from you and improve themselves later on in life!" Tsukune said desperately, although his eyes kept glancing at the strange cloaked figure that was crossing the auditorium.

"They'd have to be alive for that," Saffron said snidely, as if he was explaining a simple matter to a dull child, "I don't think that's really on the table."

"I meant for the ones that are left!" Tsukune shouted in frustration.

Saffron crossed his arms over his chest as his brow furrowed, and then glanced over at Ranma.

The pigtailed boy had been curiously silent the whole time, and was even now standing next to Tsukune with one hand in his pockets as the other waved back and forth in front of his face, warding off the smoke.

"No, I'm definitely leaning towards Saotome suffering for his insolence," Saffron said as he uncrossed his arms and aimed one at Ranma, "I'm sorry we couldn't come to a more favorable agreement, Aono, but he brought this upon himself."

To Saffron's annoyance, Ranma still hadn't taken up a martial arts stance or anything, and even the others looked like they weren't even paying attention to him anymore, even though they were still staring in his direction.

"Well Saotome? Do you have any final quips or self-righteous drivel to get off your chest before I unmake you? Or perhaps a warning for our mutual friend Tsukune so he doesn't have to share your fate?"

Ranma did no such thing, rocking back and forth on his heels as he mumbled, "Wait for it..."

The Phoenix King sneered as white-hot flames started to gather in his palms. "No? Well then, you-"

And then something poked him in the back.

"There. That should do it."


To Saffron, all he could perceive was a series of bright flashing lights before his eyes and a dreadful sinking feeling.

Everyone else watching was treated to the sight of the Phoenix King being enveloped by rings of white light, flaring brilliantly before dimming into spinning rings of runic script and arcane symbols. Several rings whirled into being before spontaneously tightening, vanishing in another flare of light with a high-pitched hiss.

When the light show was over, none could really claim to be surprised to see Saffron kneeling on the ground, stunned, and once again looking ten years old.

Though Ranma was kind of surprised that the phoenix's clothes had shrunk appropriately. 'Man, how come I can't change clothes with my form? Must be nice for magic to actually work in your favor.'

"What? Wh-When? How?" Saffron stuttered, staring at his small, fleshy hands and then slowly turning his head.

Standing beside him was a man. A man wearing long white robes and a hood that obscured his features, along with a crucifix necklace. A familiar man whose eyes seemed to shine ominously and whose unpleasant smile was barely visible through the unnatural shadow cast over his features.

"Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt," the man said affably, bowing his head slightly as he backed away, "please, go right ahead with your conversation."

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Saffron howled, tears bursting from his eyes even as flames - puny though they were compared to the fireballs earlier - engulfed his hands. "I'LL KILL-GYURK!" the royal child yelped as he was suddenly pounced on by Kouma in his hellhound form, seized easily in the massive canin's burning jaws before Kouma started to shake the hapless king back and forth.

"Kouma! Wait! Stop! Stop that!" Tsukune shouted, pointing to the massive black dog. "Drop him! Now!"

Kouma glared at Tsukune with Saffron still siezed painfully between his knife-like teeth, but reluctantly did as instructed, letting Saffron fall into one of the small fires, his body dripping blood and burning saliva.

"Oh, I didn't know we had a fire service," Moka noted as she saw several people in red coats arrive with long hoses and firefighting equipment before they scattered to put out the fires.

"All right, we should evacuate so they can get these blazes under control," Tsukune said, his mind straining under the sheer number of questions he had at the moment even as he pushed them aside to focus on priorities, "Chopper-"

"Got it," the troll said as he swung a locker down on top of Saffron.

CRACK!

Tsukune's eyes bulged as his mouth opened and closed like a fish. "W... W... Why did you..."

"I was just finishing him off," Chopper said, tugging on his shirt collar.

"I didn't want you to kill him!" Tsukune protested, flailing his arms.

"Oh. Oops. Sorry 'bout that. My bad, totally thought we were good to kill him," the troll mumbled, embarrassed, "so can we leave now?"

Tsukune covered his face with his hands, feeling that if he allowed himself to speak he might just end up screaming, and he nodded his head.

Moka, sensing that their captain was too distraught to lead them properly, gestured toward the door. "All right, let's go! Towards the east exit and onto the field! Kouma, can you check the halls nearby and see if there's any students that are trapped or need help to get out?"

"Okay, sure," the hellhound rumbled, turning around and sauntering through the flames as jets of water started arcing into the auditorium.

Tsukune managed to bring his frustration under control again and turn to his side. "Ranma, can you... Uh..." He started looking around the auditorium, pressing the cloth tight over his mouth. "Hey, where'd Ranma go?"

"Oi, creepy hooded guy! Wait up!" Ranma shouted as he strolled through the hall, dodging the increasing number of firefighters and the occasional nursing technician barreling the other way.

The hooded figure glanced behind him, and Ranma barely glimpsed his smirk from beneath his hood.

"Well, leave it to you to chase me down. I really thought I had snuck out of there. Did you want something?" the mysterious figure asked.

"Yeah, I do," Ranma muttered as he approached the man, "you're the guy, right? That Hell Priest guy or whatever that sealed Saffron in the first place? And you also sent me that stupid letter telling me to come here."

The man grinned. "I'm just an exorcist that happened to conveniently wander by."

"Yeah, and Prof Richard's just a disgruntled stage magician," Ranma deadpanned, "look, don't give me any half-assed excuses. I appreciate whatever you did to Saffron back there, because taking down his adult form is a HUGE chore, but you didn't exorcise anything. Who are you?"

The hooded man turned away again, clasping his hands behind his back. "Well, since you asked so nicely... Yes. I think it is about time."

"Time for what?" Ranma asked cautiously.

"We've all been through a lot today, haven't we? And the day's hardly begun!" The sketchy figure chuckled darkly. "I'll send for you and Aono tomorrow. You'll get your explanations then."


Ranma frowned as the hooded man walked off, deciding not to follow any further. "Man, what a creep," the pigtailed boy said. Despite feeling quite thankful for his appearance and swift conclusion, the fellow had an extremely dubious aura, one that reminded the martial artist immediately of Happousai.

Not because the hooded man seemed lecherous in any way, but more in the sense of being an ancient power that Ranma wanted to punch almost entirely on instinct.

Ranma turned toward a nearby air vent. "Yo, Mizore! What'd you think of that guy?"

Surprisingly, he was answered by silence, and the pigtailed boy blinked.

"Mizore? Hello? Are you okay?" He walked over to the vent and grabbed the edges, prying the steel cover off. "You didn't overheat or anything from the hot air coming from the auditorium, did you?"

Peering into the air duct, Ranma was quite surprised to see half a dozen eyes staring back at him, set above a pair of huge fangs dripping with venom.

"Oh. It's you," Ranma grumbled, clearly disappointed, "get out of there, Keito. You're blocking the ventilation."

"Hmph. Is that all you have to say?" the spider woman said as her arms creeped out of the duct, grabbing onto the wall before pushing the rest of her body out.

Ranma backed up as Keito emerged fully, though she was still attached to the wall by her hands as her extra four limbs slowly folded themselves back into her abdomen.

"Well, I have a few tips on what gave away your presence, but I don't think I want you to get any better at sneaking," Ranma admitted, crossing his arms over his chest, "Mizore needs the help, and probably won't use her skills to eat us all in our sleep."

Keito made a disgusted face as her features twisted and shrunk back to the human norm. "Please, I would never do such a thing. You'd give me indigestion."

"I'd give you worse than that," Ranma groused, "so what were you doing scuttling around in the air ducts?"

"It's my favored route of transportaion when I want to keep a few eyes on the situation in the school," Keito said nonchalantly as she cracked her neck. "Speaking of which, I saw that sad showing in the auditorium. It seems our little captain can't talk his way out of quite everything, can he?"

"Aw, c'mon, that's not fair. He was trying to appeal to SAFFRON," Ranma said, looking annoyed, "he's the biggest jerk that isn't a teacher."

"He didn't seem that bad before puberty," Keito reasoned. "He was rude, but didn't go looking for conflict. Delicious, too. I'm not sure what organs a 'phoenix' works with, but they have a sweet cajun flavor going down."

Ranma grimaced as he turned and started to head down the halls. "You're disgusting."

"Oh? So killing him is only wrong when I do it?" Keito said with a raised eyebrow as she followed him.

"That's different! I have something against him personally!" Ranma snapped, throwing up his arms. "Besides, I didn't eat him afterward!"

"Really? How wasteful," Keito mumbled. "You do know that he comes back whole, right? If you're going to kill him anyway, you should at least TRY him. It's not like he's any worse off for it."

"No! That's gross!" Ranma snapped.

"What? You don't like poultry?"

"Shut up!"

"Keep clear of the auditorium and the cafeteria! All classes in the south wing have been canceled! Please use extreme caution when entering and navigating the building!" Tsukune shouted into a bullhorn as Moka and Chopper tried to instruct individuals that had questions about the smoldering building.

He lowered the bullhorn and looked back at the school building, noting that the fires had been extinguished and the smoke pouring from the windows and roof had thinned.

"All right, I think the building should be safer, now," Tsukune said as he walked up to Moka, "did Kouma get back from searching for survivors?"

"I think I see him now," Moka said, pointing to one of the blocked-off entrances.

Sure enough, a giant black dog was nudging the door open as he stepped outside, a single figure clinging to his back tightly.

"Kouma! You found someone?" Tsukune asked as he and the others approached.

"Hey, isn't that the girl who was with you the other day? When we fought Jin?" Moka asked. The girl was tall, slender, and rather flat-chested, with long blonde hair and narrow eyes that made her stand out immediately.

Kouma looked dinstinctly displeased as he stopped in front of his companions. "Yeah, I found her trapped in the girl's bathroom by some debris. Then I tried to leave her there, but she grabbed onto my fur and wouldn't let go."

"I can't believe you were just going to abandon me!" the blonde complained, still clinging to the hellhound.

"I can't believe any monster that uses fire magic would need help getting out of a burning building," Kouma grumbled.

Tsukune didn't really know what they were talking about, much less why Kouma looked so unhappy at saving someone he knew, but decided to do his job first and worry about it later. "Miss, are you hurt at all? We can give you assistance getting to the nurse's office if necessary."

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," the girl said, smiling pleasantly, "I'm fine."

"If you're fine, then get off me," the hellhound growled.

The blonde looked irritated as she dismounted, but then she smiled at Moka.

"Hi there! I don't believe we've ever been introduced! I'm-"

"Nobody cares," Kouma snapped as his body was wreathed in flames and shifted back into human form, "go away, already."

The blonde frowned at him. "You realize, of course, that this will reflect poorly on your department when I'm writing up the survey form on your performance."

"All I realize is that you're still taking up my time when we've got IMPORTANT things to do. Hit the road, fox," Kouma snapped back, now facing Tsukune without even bothering to look at the girl.


Tsukune sweatdropped as he watched the blonde blow a raspberry at Kouma and dash off. He had no idea what that had been about, but he had more important concerns at present than Kouma being excessively rude to certain students.

"Kouma, Chopper, may I speak to you both for a moment?" the young human asked, crossing his arms over his chest as the two monsters approached.

"Yeah?"

"What's up, Boss?"

Tsukune's eyes narrowed as he glanced at each of his subordinates in turn. "Would either of you like to explain your actions back in the auditorium? Why did you attack Saffron after he had been turned into a child?"

"Well, I didn't want to fight him when he was an adult," Kouma reasoned, much to Tsukune's chagrin, "the bastard's nigh indestructible and obviously fireproof. Of course I was gonna wait for a good opening."

"I was actually good to fight him either way," Chopper pointed out, "but Gamaroshi's probably right. He didn't seem nearly as tough as a kid."

"That's NOT the issue," Tsukune said through clenched teeth, "once he was a child again, however that happened, he was no longer a threat! There was no need to attack him!"

"He might've been a threat, you don't know!" Kouma argued. "He's a magic user! You can't take them lightly, even if they're kids!"

"Even a little fire can be really dangerous," Chopper said, adopting an unfamiliar lecturing tone as he pointed to Tsukune, "a few sparks can destroy an entire building if left unattended, and severe burns can take HOURS to heal completely!"

Tsukune grimaced as he massaged his forehead. "Okay, no, you're still missing the point," the human said wearily, "when I said 'no killing,' I didn't just mean that you should only use lethal force if you have a good excuse handy. I want you to avoid killing whenever possible! Stopping Saffron without killing him at that point was completely possible!"

Kouma started to look annoyed at the constant complaints. "Look, what are you getting all uppity for? He's not even dead for good!"

"I don't care if he's..." Tsukune trailed off as that thought penetrated. "Wait... Say again?"

Kouma gave Tsukune an odd look. "He's not even dead for good." Seeing that Tsukune's expression didn't change, he decided to elaborate. "Saffron self-revives after being killed. Didn't you know that?"

"No, I didn't know that!" Tsukune said hotly. "Why didn't you say that before?"

"I thought you knew! I thought everyone knew!" Kouma protested.

"I knew," Chopper mentioned, raising a hand.

"I actually heard of that during the last student council meeting," Moka admitted, looking embarrassed.

"I knew that!" volunteered the blonde girl from before, popping up behind Chopper and waving her arm in the air.

Kouma promptly seized her around the waist, and she yelped as the hellhound hurled her away as far as he could, almost managing to reach the wall of the school building before the blonde skidded to a stop on her heels and then scampered away.

Tsukune once again had to fend off several unimportant questions in order to focus on the crucial ones. "Wait, if he comes back to life, then where is he now?"

Kouma thought about it as he dusted off his hands. "Well... He died right where all his victims' bodies were... so he's probably wherever they are, assuming that whoever's on corpse removal duty takes his fancy egg thing with the rest of the trash."

Behind the school building, a pile of scorched, inhuman bodies and bits of burnt debris shifted slightly, barely moving enough to disturb the top-most layer of ashes.

"Somebody... help..." moaned a faint voice from underneath the pile, "being crushed... by... irony..."

Tsukune was silent for several minutes as he paced back and forth, deep in thought.

Chopper, Kouma, and Moka all waited on one side to hear what he had to say, although Kouma's temper was starting to show.

"Why do we have to put up with this, anyway? The little bastard killed a bunch of people himself. Who cares whether he was killed or not?" Kouma grumbled quietly.

"Just because someone does something wrong doesn't automatically condemn them to death!" Moka hissed, glaring at the hellhound. "I hear you almost killed Mizore once; so would it be fine if Ranma had killed you for it on the spot?"

"That was different!" Kouma protested. "It was an accident! And in the end, she was fine!"

"That's the difference between human justice and a monster's justice," Moka explained, crossing her arms under her breasts, "human justice gives you a chance to explain yourself and make amends, like you're doing now. Tsukune just wants to give everyone that chance."

Kouma winced. Having studied a bit about the way law works in the human world, and with the intention of studying much more, that explanation hit way too close to home.

"Well, it's not like he still can't in this case," Chopper reasoned, "he'll just need a shovel to do it."


Finally, Tsukune sighed and stopped pacing before approaching his subordinates again.

"Kouma, Chopper, I thought it over," the human said reluctantly, "and since the both of you knew that he was immortal, and that you weren't doing permanent harm, what you did to Saffron didn't break any rules."

He took a deep breath. "That said, I'm still disappointed in you for attacking someone who was effectively helpless rather than arresting him. The fact that Saffron can come back to life after dying doesn't give anyone license to hurt him whenever they want."

"Really?" Chopper asked, scratching his head, "but people are always killing him. Sometimes just for kicks."

Tsukune stared hard at the wrestler.

"Ohhhhh, that's the PROBLEM. I get it," Chopper said, nodding.

"There have been a lot of these kinds of mistakes since we started, and I'm glad to say that me and Ranma have worked out a way to solve them," Tsukune said, his mood finally lightening a bit, "over the upcoming break, the Protection Committee is going to be holding a training camp. There we can hammer out some of the issues we still have with enforcing the rules, and Ranma wanted to do some combat training as well."

The other two boys promptly lit up at the thought of combat training.

"I haven't finalized the details yet, but when Ranma comes back-"

"Yo," Ranma said, startling Tsukune slightly as he literally seemed to fall down from nowhere.

"Oh! Ranma! Where have you been?" Tsukune asked.

"Just trying to talk to that jerk in the robe," Ranma said, shrugging as Keito landed next to him silently, apparently jumping down from the same place.

"Jerk? But he helped stop Saffron," Moka pointed out.

"Lots of people have helped me stop Saffron," Ranma countered, "almost all of them are still jerks." Then he turned back to Tsukune. "So anyway, we're supposed to see Mister Jerk tomorrow. He said he'd send for us. Just a heads up."

"Okay, that's fine..." Tsukune mumbled. "Ah... Why?"

"Probably so that he can reveal a few important secrets, hint at things to come, and give us some kind of obscure goal to take care of. I've been through this sort of thing before. Basically he's just going to annoy us and give us more problems."

"Ah. Well, I'll look forward to that, then," Tsukune mumbled, not sounding like he was looking forward to it at all.

"Right. Going to class now. Later," Ranma mumbled as he walked off with his hands in his pockets.

"I should get going too," Tsukune agreed, "all right everyone, I'll see you after classes! Good luck on your patrols!"

Kouma frowned as the others split off, each going their separate way.

"So... Nobody wants to go find Saffron? Just gonna leave him wherever the firefighters dumped him... Okay, whatever. I'll leave too, then..."

Moka looked uncharacteristically angry as she walked into the girl's bathroom, eventually stopping in front of the sink and glaring at her reflection in the mirror.

Specifically, she was glaring at the Rosario around her neck.

"All right, Evil Moka," Moka said sharply, "I want to have a little talk with you."

'Oh, you CAN'T be serious. You're calling me that too? This is rich,' murmured the voice in Moka's head.

"Well, I used to think you weren't a bad person at all, just kind of scary and headstrong," Moka admitted, planting her hands on her hips as she glared at the mirror, "I even gave you the benefit of the doubt when you DECKED ONE OF MY FRIENDS for no reason. But now you're making me say all those terrible things! What's gotten into you?"

The voice was silent for several seconds before it deadpanned, 'Seriously? That's where the line is? Making you hurl insults?'

Moka flushed. "At least until now everyone treated me like I had nothing to do with you... What's everybody going to think if you keep suddenly controlling my voice?"

'Oh, would you GROW UP?' Evil Moka snapped. 'You're a vampire, woman! An immortal queen of the night! Who cares what those useless pissants think?'

"I care!" Moka said defiantly. "I don't want Ranma to think I want to hurt him!"

'Oh, but we DO want to hurt-'

"You! YOU want to hurt him!" Moka shouted, pointing rather uselessly at the Rosario in the mirror. "Me? I'm over it! Ranma is not a bad person! He's arrogant, childish, and insensitive, but he doesn't deserve this kind of animosity!"

'Are you stupid? That jerk still talks down to you every chance he gets! And while we're on the topic, I really don't like how chummy you two have gotten! You used to be on board with teaching Ranma a lesson! Where's your pride, girl?'

"I swallowed it sometime after I woke up WET and BEATEN half to death by someone who never wanted to hurt me in the first place," Moka said coldly, "so tell me: how are you suddenly making me say things I don't mean?"

'Oh, that? Well, it's been a while since I woke up, and you won't let me out again, so I've had a little time to mess around in here.'

Moka frowned. "In the Rosario?"

'No, in your head. Well, MY head, technically.'

Moka recoiled, her eyes wide. "Y-You're messing around in my head? Stop that!"

'To answer you in order: yes, and no. Anyway, it took long enough, but I think I found a way to affect you through the Rosario seal. I knew there must have been a way, since I can already talk to you in your mind, so there must have been a way to affect you besides trying to nag you into submission. And, well...'

Moka gulped as she stared long and hard at the Rosario in the mirror. "What... are you planning to do with me?"

'Nothing that Tsukune won't forgive eventually. That schmuck couldn't stay mad at you if you murdered his entire family.'

"Be more specific, please," Moka said, her head drooping as she felt a queasy feeling in her stomach.

'I would, but then you might prepare for it ahead of time. And then I wouldn't be able to break the pigtailed prick like a pair of cheap chopsticks.'

"You do realize you're just going to get us beaten to a pulp, right?" Moka said with a sigh. "You couldn't beat Ranma if he was asleep and hogtied."

There was only stillness in her mind after Moka said that, at least for a few seconds. Then, a hot surge of energy pulsed through Moka's body, causing her to jolt forward.

'What. Did. You. Say?' Evil Moka demanded, her mental voice burning with fury.

Moka had to steady herself on the sink, and as sweat started beading on her forehead she glared up at her reflection.

It was different, now. Instead of being an image of Moka with her Rosario, Moka was now looking at her inner self, her silver hair lashing about in an invisible wind and an enraged sneer on her face.

"You didn't hear me?" Moka said as she shakily stood up straight, feeling an almost searing heat come from the Rosario over her chest, "Ranma won't lose to us. To YOU. I know it hurts, but it's true, all right? That annoying, smartass human is just better than you are."

'What the hell are you saying?' Evil Moka snapped, her eyes flaring crimson in the mirror.

"I'm saying that I don't want to fight him. And I don't want you fighting him in... our body. EVER. And that's at least as much because I don't want to be laid up in the nurse's office as it is because I don't like you hurting my friends for no good reason," Moka snapped back, suddenly grasping the Rosario tightly in her fist, "I'm also saying that Ranma is strong enough to fend off any enemy we'd need YOU for, and I trust him to do it, too."

'You miserable, naive little-' Evil Moka sputtered, before Moka suddenly turned away from the mirror entirely.

"I think our conversation is over now," the vampiress said, reaching for a paper towel and using it to wipe off her forehead, "if you keep causing trouble, I'll just have to ask the others if there's something to be done. I'm sure Yukari will have a few ideas."

'What makes you think you can cast me aside?' Evil Moka demanded, 'what right do you have to... hey, is there someone in that stall?'

Moka froze as a flushing noise came from her right, and an unfamiliar girl walked out of the stall a moment later and made her way to the sink, not paying Moka so much as a glance.

The vampiress stood in place, her face burning as she stopped to think about what she must have sounded like.

"Uh... h-hi," Moka said shakily, suddenly approaching the other student, "uh, you may have, well, heard something odd just now, but-"

"I'm sure there was a completely reasonable explanation for why you were yelling at your reflection in the mirror," the girl said as she washed her hands, "maybe you've got two brains. Or maybe you're bonded with some kind of weird symbiote. It's not that uncommon."

Moka sighed in relief, holding a hand over her heart. "Yes, of course. Thank you so much for understanding."

"No problem. It's not a big deal," the girl said as she wiped off her hands and then slipped a phone out of her pocket before flipping it open, "of course, that won't make the Twitter transcript any less hilarious once it finishes uploading!"

Moka paled considerably, her hair frayed and her eyes hollow. "Uh? Wait, you-"

"Catch ya later, crazy lady. Don't let the voices get you down!," the girl chirped as she walked out the door, waving a hand over her head with her eyes locked on her cell phone screen.

As Moka's face darkened, the voice from her Rosario sighed. 'It's your own fault, you know. Did you forget that we can speak mentally to each other?'

"SHUT UP! I HATE YOU!" Moka cried, suddenly bursting into tears as she dashed out of the bathroom and down the hall.

'Uh... where do you think you're running to? I'm attached to you,' Evil Moka pointed out.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, WILL YOU?" Moka begged, startling several more students as she sprinted down the hall screaming.

'Oh, for pity's sake...'

End Chapter 13

Big Human on Campus: Extra!

"Well, THAT took longer than I'd have liked," Saffron grumbled as he trudged down the hall to his room, opening the door and almost collapsing as he crossed the threshold.

The last dozen or so hours had been torture, and even Saffron's normally nigh-inexhaustable reserves of energy and willpower had been tested.

"To burn my way through all of those bodies... I barely made it out before they buried me with them!" Saffron groused as he shut the door behind him.

It was bad enough having to be on the bottom of a pile of stinking, burning corpses, even if one was immune to fire, but the sheer amount of time he had been trapped was the worst. As it turned out, several of the creatures he had killed were rather resistant to flames. In his adult form, such resistance had been barely noticable. As a child, however, his puny embers took forever to eat through the flesh, and the resistant bodies positively refused to catch aflame like the others.

"If I EVER get that chance again, there will be no fooling around like this time," Saffron growled, dropping onto his bed angrily. "First, the Hell King dies. Then, Saotome dies. Then the buildings."

He stopped to think, "No, wait, Professor Richard should definitely be killed before Saotome. And then-"

The Phoenix king's plans for unlikely revenge were interrupted by a knock on his door, and with an annoyed glare, Saffron got off his bed to see who it was.

He opened the door, and was somewhat surprised to see a completely unfamiliar boy standing in front of his room.

"Yes? Who are you and what do you want?" Saffron demanded.

"You're Saffron, right?" the boy asked.

"Hm? So I don't know you?" Saffron asked, checking the boy's uniform for any band or badge that would indicate he was part of the student council or Protection Committee. "I'm very tired right now, so if this could-"

Splutch! The Phoenix king was rudely and brutally interrupted by a sword-like claw impaling him through the chest.

"Kimiko was my girlfriend, bastard!" the boy growled, "you think you could just kill her off like that and get away with it?"

Saffron tried to gasp out a response, but a sudden twist of the claw finished him off, and he gave up trying to respond as darkness claimed him once more.

Crack!

Saffron winced as light poured in through a hole in his resurrection vessel, forcing him to cover his eyes as his senses returned fully to him.

"Oh, what now?" Saffron mumbled as the rest of the vessel crumbled away all around him, "are you still here? If you want to kill me again, can't you at least wait until..."

Saffron trailed off as he finally got a look at who had opened his vessel, and realized it was not the same person as before. This student was much leaner, and had a well-groomed mustache as he stared down contemptuously at the Phoenix king.

"Who-"

"My name is Iricho Monoya. You killed my brother. Prepare to die," the stranger said with a thick Spanish accent.

Saffron stared silently as the intruder's hand and forearm suddenly extended while also narrowing considerably and tapering off into a thin blade.

The Phoenix king sighed, and then closed his eyes. "All right. I'm prepared," he said, spreading his arms out.

Shwk! "Gyuh!"

Crack!

Saffron's hands balled into fists as his vessel split open once again, and his teeth clenched as he opened his eyes to glower at the newest intruder.

"For the love of the ancients, how many more of you are going to come around?" he demanded as he suddenly stood up, shoving away the shards of ornate eggshell.

The boy who had opened the vessel recoiled, and as a result nearly barreled into the girl standing behind him.

"Whoa! Watch it!"

"Sorry! He surprised me."

"Just hurry up with it! I want my turn!"

Saffron's eyes bugged out as he looked at the people standing in a single file leading out the door and into the hall.

"There's a LINE? There's a LINE of people waiting to kill me?" Saffron said, his face paling.

"Yeah, so hurry up and get it moving!" yelled a boy near the door, "I've got things to do tonight besides mob justice, you know!"

"Wait a minute! Wait one blazing minute!" Saffron snarled, "Students die at this Academy all the time! If everyone was so dedicated to vengeance that they'd hunt down the killer of their friends and families, we wouldn't have enough students to hold classes!"

The boy at the front of the line shrugged. "Well, yeah, that's true... But on the other hand, it's not that common to even know who killed your friends. A lot of people just disappear, never to be heard from again."

"More importantly," piped up the girl behind him, "it's REALLY rare that any of the mass murderers around here get rendered almost helpless. None of us would be here if you were still an adult."

"Well, maybe Monoya. He's kind of hardcore like that," the boy suggested.

"Hey! Can we get a move on? Not all of us are nocturnal, you know!" shouted someone near the back.

"So that's how it is," the boy at the front of the line said as he reared a fist back that crackled with electricity, "I'd say I was sorry about this, but I wouldn't mean it."

Saffron's eye twitched. "I hate my life..."

Bzack!