Insert Pointless Interactions Here

1. Akai: Hardcore Gamer

Smash. Clang.

Two swords met.

She threw her sword forward in an attempt to nab her opponent; her opponent was too quick, and she quickly avoided. Her opponent then attempted to jump on her and whip her across, but she was faster and avoided.

But she made a misstep.

As she turned around to avoid, her opponent prepared the final strike. It had waited, latently powering up - and now it was going to hit -

---

"Daaaaaaaah!"

Aster slumped in her chair in frustration, throwing aside the controller. "That's the fifteenth time..."

"I'm the master at video games. You can't beat me." Akai smirked. "We can keep playing. And I'll keep beating you."

"I'm not sure how much more I can afford to sink in this humiliation..." Aster got up. "I'm going to go get a pear..."

Akai poked the jun-akuma a few times. "Hey, gimme a plate of cookies."

Aster returned holding an Asian pear in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She put the drink down and sat down.

"Wanna do another round?"

"I'm gonna lose kyaa," complained Aster, but they started anyway. Five minutes later, Akai had lost her entire health bar.

"WHAT?" yelled Akai. "Goddammit! That's not supposed to happen! That's not supposed to make sense!"

Aster giggled.

---

"Geez, Aster," said Akai, huffing as she pulled in a kicking and screaming Sue. "If it wasn't for me, she'd have escaped."

"It's not my fault she's fast, kyaa!"

"She's not fast. You're slow."

The two dragged the Sue to the basement, slammed her in an empty cell, and went back upstairs. "I think we might be running out of space..." said Akai.

"That happens; we just double them up in cells," replied Aster.

Akai went to the television and pulled out a Wii. "Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Up for a game?"

"Sure kyaa, why not," said Aster, and she picked up the controller.

Twenty-five rounds later, Aster looked like she wanted to throw up.

"...I think we've decided..." said Aster. "You're going to win no matter what..."

"You need to play more video games," said Akai.

They went for another round; Aster (as Kirby) completely destroyed Akai's Meta Knight.

"I - " Akai blinked. "I - "

She threw the remote at the wall.

---

"Long day," said Aster, eating some cup ramen with Akai. "Didn't think Harriet-san could snap that in half..."

"Must have been painful for him," said Akai. She looked at the television screen and saw a Street Fighter multiplayer ripoff. "Hey...that looks like fun."

Within ten minutes they had set everything up and were ready.

Hm... thought Akai. I can beat her for several games in a row, but there will always be the last game where she beats me. I need to figure out when that point will be so I can maximize my number of wins.

They started the first round, and Akai easily took the lead...

...but then in the last minute, Aster made an amazing comeback and swept the floor with Akai's character.

There was a long pause as Akai looked at the stats for the first round: Aster had won.

She blinked. She stared.

Finally, she took out her tin of crack pills and stuffed five into her mouth.

2. Tom: Question Unawares

"Why on earth do you wear that, kyaa~?"

"Hm?" said Tom, looking at Aster, perplexed.

"Why do you wear that? That trenchcoat and scarf. It doesn't look right together. Is it some kind of archaeologist's uniform?"

"Oh..." Tom laughed. "Do you watch Doctor Who?"

"...No, I don't..."Aster put a finger to her chin. "I know Akai-chan does, but I'm not interested..."

"It's a very interesting show," said Tom, going back to inspecting what he was holding.

There was a very long and awkward silence while Aster continued appraising him. Finally, she spoke up. "So... you cosplay on a daily basis?"

"I wouldn't call it cosplaying, strictly..."

"Whoever you're cosplaying as, well, must be a really stupid character," she said, and walked off.

It took a second for Tom to register what she had said. "H...Hey!"

---

"You dropped this."

Tom looked back at Aster, obviously still a little miffed at the "stupid character" comment. 

"Oh...that's my crowbar."

"Crowbar?" Aster appraised Tom quizically. "Do archaeologists need crowbars?"

"No... Do you even know what archaeologists do?"

"Uh..." Aster frowned. "They... dig."

Tom facepalmed.

"Why do you like manga over regular comics, anyway? Are you specifically interested in Japan only, then?"

"No, I read the American Maximum Ride manga, kyaa..."

"So it's the drawing style."

"I guess... yeah..."

"Have you even tried regular comics?"

"Not interested."

"Why?"

"They look weird... the plot is repetitive..."

Tom sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere on why some girl would prefer big-eyed oddly tall figures to slightly more built characters. And wasn't Aster being a pot calling the kettle black? What better plot did manga have in general than American comics, anyway?

"Well, moving on. Have you read regular books at all?"

"Sure I have."

"Like what?"

"Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight..."

"Mainstream then. What did you think of Twilight? Isn't that getting a manga sometime soon?"

"It was stupid."

"Then how is that any worse than the shoujo manga you read?"

Aster paled and looked around shiftily. "I... I - You ask a lot of questions, kyaa!"

And she ran off. Tom gave a satisfied smirk. He liked asking questions.

---

"Are you watching that TV show you cosplay for?"

Tom turned from the television to see Aster behind him. "Yeah. Don't you watch live-action shows?"

"Just some dramas, and not too many of them kyaa."

"Well, try watching an episode of Doctor Who. It's the Tenth Doctor on right now; I'm watching one of the best episodes of the series."

"...fine, if you insist."

Aster sat down next to him and watched. She continuously made comments on how the aliens looked fake, how the CGI effects were badly done, how those big cylindrical machine thingies constantly yelling the same thing over and over were lame, and how the romance was spontaneous and stupid. At the end she was yelling that the solution to the problem had been a total deus ex machina.

"How do you even watch this kyaa?" questioned Aster, not very happy at the "trash" she had just watched.

"Do you judge all of your anime like this?"

"No. I mean yes. I mean - argh!"

Tom laughed internally. This was going to be fun.

3. Louise: So I Heard

"So...you're Aster?"

"Resident Society member." Aster smiled; she'd been delivering this line as a sign of her pride.

"Hm..." Louise looked over Aster, finally saying, "Well, you're not that bad."

Aster immediately caught the tone. "Who's been saying bad things about me?"

"I have... sources..." replied Louise, not quite up to incriminating anyone at the moment.  Still, Aster's reputation seemed bigger than her current demeanor.

"I don't see you often," said Louise, "seeing as most of the time you're reading manga."

"Oh, yeah... I guess I haven't gotten to meet you properly yet..."

"Throwing away your social life for manga?" joked Louise.

Suddenly Aster's face got stony serious.

"No! Not at all... not that much! That would make me an otaku..."

"...that's a bad thing?"

"Yes! That's very very bad! They're usually men who can't get girls and live in isolation, unable to blend into society!"

"...Okay..." Louise blinked a few times. Aster's face did not lose its intensity. "If you say so..."

Louise decided what she had heard about Aster was definitely right.

---

"Louise...-chan?"

"Yeah..." Aster cocked her head. "You add that to everyone you're familiar with."

"I've heard, but..."

"Would you prefer I don't use it?"

"It's not that I don't like it at - "

"Louise... Louise..." Aster practiced it without the honorific. Her mangled accent made it sound like "ruuisu". Finally she shook her head. "Feels weird."

"You can add '-chan' to my name if you want, though..." said Louise.

"Oh... okay!" Aster brightened. "See, it feels kinda distant, like I don't even know you, if I don't use it... I think it's 'cause I learned a whole social norm and it's hard to change that, you know..."

Louise laughed gently.

"What?" asked Aster.

"You seem to like talking a lot..."

"Oh..." said Aster. "Sorry." (She didn't sound sorry.)

"It's not like I have anything wrong with it..."

"Eh..." said Aster. She fretted a bit, then added, "Want some dorayaki? I made some for Jess-chan, but I have extras."

"Sure, why not..."

And both of them headed to the kitchen.

---

"I heard you like apples..."

"Oh?" said Aster, a slice of Asian pear on a fork where it was about to be bitten off by her mouth. "Not so much anymore..."

"Why not?"

"Author retcon."

"Right..." Louise nodded. "I also heard you're close to your Author..."

"Where are you getting all this info about me?" Aster narrowed her eyes. It looked like she was about to probe straight into Louise's conscience.

"Just random places. People talk about you."

"And you listen to that gossip?"

"Well, I'm not always believing it, it's just I'm wanting to know if they're true."

"Hmph." Aster folded her arms. "Well, they're being stupid."

"I see..." said Louise.

Tash walked by, amused watching the two have a conversation. "I told you she'd be tsundere..."

She walked off, humming a tune to herself while both of them watched her walk off.

There was an extremely long pause, until Aster registered it.

"Heeeeeeeey..." she said.

4. Alice: Affectionate Pain

"Can I glomp you?"

The words came straight out of Alice's mouth.

"Uh..." Aster blinked a few times and added, "...why?"

"Because you're a fairy!"

"Fae," said Aster.

"Yeah. That. So can I glomp you?"

"...glomp?"

"It's like a really, really tight hug."

"I know what a glomp is... from Tash-san..."

"You didn't know what a glomp was earlier?"

Aster scratched her head. "Well, we don't do it much..."

"Don't people do that at anime cons?"

"Not in Japan, no..."

Alice looked at Aster, fretting. "Oh. Well, can I glomp you?"

"Uh..." Aster thought about it. She liked hugs, of course. However, she had been on the receiving end on Chrys's hugs several times when Chrys was on sugar and they, while pleasant, had also been rather painful.

"Well, sure," she said, thinking nothing could get worse than Chrys's sugar-induced hugs.

How very, very wrong she was.

Aster was enveloped in a rib-cracking embrace so tight Aster wondered if breathing even would be an option. In fact, she wondered if her bones were already broken and fragmented, poking into her organs.

Alice let go and smiled broadly. "Let's do that again!"

Let's not, thought Aster.

---

"Can you hug...a little less, kyaa?" Aster probed.

Alice looked at Aster in dismay. "Do you not like me hugging?"

"No, no, kyaa... It's just... I value my ribs."

"It's a sign of affection!"

"...I suppose," said Aster. "Just... a little less, before you kill me, okay? I may be lazy but I do exercise a bit."

"All right," said Alice, a little crestfallen, and immediately added, "How about this?"

And she glomped Aster.

Aster choked and spluttered, and when Alice finally released, Aster breathed deeply a few times. Perhaps there had been a difference, but the glomp had been so breath-robbing that Aster couldn't tell the difference.

Finally Aster added, "You know what... if it makes you feel better, go ahead and do your normal."

"Yay!" said Alice, who responded with yet another glomp, making Aster regret the statement.

---

"Here's my paperwork, Tash-san..."

"Oh, on time today." Tash took the papers. "You're getting better. Maybe it'll be early next time... No, that'll be on the day Phoenixia becomes a virgin..."

"Yeah, yeah," said Aster, not taking "insults" to her very well. "Well, the next batch'll only be early if you stop shoving the papers into my room - "

"IT'S A TASH!"

There was a blur of color and both girls found themselves pinned to the wall and suffocating.

For the duration of about thirty seconds Aster got the feeling that she would never, ever breathe again.

Alice let go, grinning broadly, and proclaimed, "Two in one! That's a bonus!"

"I don't know about that…" groaned Aster.

She certainly had more to groan about when Alice decided to glomp each of them separately two seconds later.

5. Ingrid: Deadpan Starer

"…"

"You know, you're really inactive," said Aster, "almost like Hana."

"Who's Hana?"

"…nobody you should know about," said Aster. "In any case. You don't do anything."

Ingrid stared at Aster, looking blankly at her. "…Is there a problem with that?"

"It's really weird. It's like you're completely emotionless, with absolutely no…hey…"

Aster's face suddenly went blank – then it beamed with delight.

"Stay here."

Ingrid blinked as Aster ran into her room and emerged with what looked like a cosplay costume – it looked like a school uniform, a short-sleeve blue dress with a tiny red string tied on the top, along with a white shirt underneath.

"…and…what is that?"

"Put it on!" implored Aster. "Now we just need to dye your hair light blue and it'll be perfect!"

"…What's going on?" asked Ingrid.

"…You don't know?" Aster drew back. "How do you not know?"

Her face turned to indignation.

"That's it," she quipped, sliding a DVD into the DVD player.

---

"You're really creepy, you know," said Aster. "You just sit there and stare into space."

"So?"

"Argh, you never get it. Anyway, you need to get out more. Or…maybe try insulting someone."

"But why would I do that?"

"Because it makes you more of a person! A normal person!"

"…okay."

Aster folded her arms. "Look. You want to blend in with people, you have to act like a normal person. Even if it seems abrasive – you do it! Because nobody likes an abnormal person!"

There was a long pause as Aster glared at Ingrid, hands on her hips and fire in her eyes.

Ingrid blinked a few times.

"Well…doing what I've been doing for a while hasn't done anything wrong so far…"

"Of course you and your emotionless self say that, but that's because you're looking at the world wrong! You're supposed to feel passionate towards the world! That's how you become normal!"

"…Is that some kind of inspirational speech?"

"Look, just take it from someone who knows. If you look normal, act normal, think normal, you'll be normal! Can I make it any simpler than that?"

"Not really," said Ingrid. There was a long pause. Then she added, "But then… Is there any particular reason why I might want to be normal?"

Aster certainly looked like she was on the verge of strangling Ingrid at this point.

---

"Are you ever going to do anything productive?"

Aster was giving Ingrid a death glare by this point. "Come on! Have some fun! Do something interesting! Because nobody certainly takes any joy out of anything without doing something interesting!"

"That's… kind of redundant, isn't it?"

"Whatever!" Aster was now blushing and angry at the same time. "Just listen to what I have to say. You won't get anywhere without being a person. So act!"

"…"

Aster sighed. Then she randomly attacked Ingrid.

Ingrid quickly reacted, pushing Aster over to the ground and slumping her.

"Sorry," said Ingrid.

Aster groaned.

"Stupid reflexive reactions." She sighed. "You could have easily done something more epic…"

"That would be kind of impractical, wouldn't it? And boring. I don't really see any point in doing that…"

Aster groaned again. "Just… let it go, okay?"

6. Lily: Caring Means Doting

"Kyaa~! Lily-chaaaaaaan~!"

Aster walked up to Lily (who was reading a book while sitting in a chair) and hugged her from behind.

"I was listening to that Vocaloid Lily and every time I see that name I keep thinking you instead, kyaa… I like you better than Vocaloid Lily."

"I… don't get it," said Lily, quite amused.

"Well, that's okay if you don't get it." Aster held on even tighter. "So cu~ute~!"

"…Why are you doing this?"

"You're so young…And I am older than you, so don't say anything about that."

Aster released a little bit, but refused to release the hug entirely. "Eeeeee, I'm like Konata now…but that doesn't matter. Lily-chan's so cute…"

Finally, Aster released entirely and looked at what Lily was reading. "Game handbook, huh? You know games, right kyaa?"

"Well, you kind of have to know fandoms to be a Sue…"

"So cute when she talks!" Aster hugged Lily again. "This is going to be so much fun…"

"Are you sure you're older?" said Lily, hiding a stealth insult.

"Yes, I'm older! And I said to not say anything about that!"

---

"So I've decided that I'm going to be your older sister!"

Lily looked at Aster after that statement, having only passed by to get a snack. "…Wha…"

"Adrian-kun gets to adopt me and Tash-san and Michael-kun get to adopt Miri-chan. So I get to adopt you!"

"…Okay then…" said Lily, wondering if Adrian, Tash, or Michael had actually… self-declared their "adoptions". She privately noted Aster probably had little useful information to provide as an older sister…

"So if you have any problems," quipped Aster, "you come right to me! Because then I'll tell you what to do and fix all of the worries you have!"

She put her hands on her hips determinedly.

"…And what if you're busy or on a mission?"

"…Then you go ask Chrys-chan."

Lily sweatdropped and went back to making her sandwich. "And how long are we going to be doing this…?"

"Forever of course!" said Aster, taking time off making her ramen (which was getting soggy) to hug Lily yet again. "My affection has no expiration date! Got that?"

"Yeah, I got it," said Lily.

"So cu~ute, kyaa," quipped Aster again. "What are we going to do with you? Are you sure you're not using cuteness powers on me?"

"I think it's more your own perception," said Lily, "but thank you for the compliment."

---

"Uh, Aster," said Lily, "don't you have anything better to do?"

"Do I?" said Aster. "Of course I have something better to do, kyaa! I have a lot of things I need to be doing right now! But I'm taking time off to watch you. That's how much I care!"

"I see," said Lily, who preferred to read her book outside the watchful eye of a girl who (very obviously) had nothing better to do. "Well, I'm okay, so you don't have anything to worry about."

"Something could happen!"

"What could happen if I have a book?"

"Anything could happen!" Aster put her hands on her hips. "What if a missile randomly pops out of nowhere while you're busy reading your book? You could be in grave danger!"

"I can take care of myself," quipped Lily.

"So cute when she says that!" Aster put her fingers together. "Kyaaaaaa~…What are we going to do with you, Lily-chan?"

Lily had an idea.

"So, Aster," she said, "I didn't quite get what you were saying last week in anime class about Soul Eater. Can you explain a little more in detail?"

"Oh!" said Aster, beaming. "Well, it's quite simple, really…"

And as Aster continued on her long rant, Lily smirked and went back to her book.

(Note: Author Aster Of The Moon meant to write snippets of Aster's interactions with every Society agent in reverse order, but retired from writing for the ACMSES before it was finished. This is what she managed to complete.)

Insert Oddly-Metered Poem Here

The Story of a Snack, a Journey, Random Stuff, and Other Things of Considerable Importance


Gently he sat there
And gently he thought,
His eyes and soul fixed
On the thing that he sought –
If won, his prize
Gratification would bring;
If lost, his suffering
In mind would bring.
The confections were made
Of chocolate and nut;
For there they awaited
For him to find – still, but
Tyler was aware
Of the traps lying there
And he had to admit
That they have him a scare;
The risk was worth it!
And onward he went.
He dodged the projectile
Towards him being sent.
Past the long desperate pit
Of the fire within;
Through the closing-in walls
Trying to squash him right thin;
Alas! No! His rival
Was coming too near;
But Tyler went up and
With the swiftness of a deer
Pinned Drake to the wall
With a trap meant for him;
Drake cried out protesting
But his chances were grim
He'd never have the cookies;
For him they were never meant;
And Tyler knew that they
Were calling for him being sent;
He ran into a sphinx
Its riddle strangely sharp
But the answer was simple
Tyler hit the thing with a carp
And ran into a wall
With spikes it was filled
Tyler ran away quickly
And ran into the chill –
A freezing-cold room!
He'd be dead within an hour.
Or at least not quite dead
But surely drained of his power.
But Tyler made movement
And made himself warm
And thus he found the door
He'd caused himself no harm
He ran into the place
Where a door was locked tight
He needed a key, he might know
Where it was… yes he might…
He found a secret exit
Where a temple lay still
He found a key lying
Flat on the windowsill
He picked up the key
But a rumble cried out
A boulder made of trenchcoats
Was creating such a shout
As he ran from the stone
He held the key in hand
He turned around and
Made his final stand
He insulted the boulder
You may think it strange
But when he opened the door
The place began to change
The wall was a hologram
The door projected so
The floor was collapsing
Like kneaded bread dough
Tyler saw what went on
He was falling into a pit
But thankfully he had on him
His "In Case of Falling Kit"
He opened the kit
And took out a pack
He deployed his parachute
And fell into a sack
He still ripped the sack –
He'd never be caught.
The cookies were still there
A prize that was still sought.
But when he got to the altar
With food tasty like the sun
He found a blue-haired girl
Finishing off the last one
She'd flown over the whole course
With dexterity and ease
She normally didn't chase after snacks
So she was easy to please
"I'm sorry, did you want one?"
But it was too late
That pleasure anticipated
Had begun to abate
It's too far gone now, he thought
Looking off with a groan
He'd get the snack next time,
He said with a sad tone
And tomorrow, he knew
He would do this once more
And he turned away from Aster
And walked out the door.

Insert Inadequately-Detailed Water Story Here

Mizunashi Akari. Distant Blue. Head Prima of the Aria Company.

Akari woke up that day and started off as usual, and continued with assisting her understudy, Ai, with her training. Ai was coming along well.

Akari herself was still fantastic as always, a beautiful hair fluttering in the wind as she guided the gondola through the ornately designed canals of Neo-Venezia. A striking beauty herself,

Akari was no doubt an extremely skilled undine.

(To the readers of this story unfamiliar with the Aria fandom... Akari's not the Sue. She's the main character. I just felt I had to do justice to the extreme detail and description done to everything in the manga. The art in there is something words can't quite do the justice to.)

Aika and Alice were coming along well, too. Of course, the Queen of Roses and the Twilight Princess (er, um, not that Twilight and definitely not that Twilight Princess) were up there with the other undines from Himeya and Orange Planet. (And yes, again, I'm just being overdetailed, again. And extra-detailed for Society members reading this but unfamiliar with Aria.)

Anyway, that day, everything changed.

Yet another shuttle had landed on the planet Aqua (formerly Mars) from Manhome (formerly Earth). Out came Arina, a girl who had come to Aqua to change her life. Shortly after Arina's landing she caught sight of Akari steering her gondola and immediately decided she wanted to be an undine. And instead of signing up with the big companies like Himeya or Orange Planet, she joined the smallest - the Aria Company. Akari was happy to have another understudy (albeit it being a lot of work), but she warned Arina that without a training course on Manhome, it was going to be a long and hard training...

...she was wrong.

Arina learned easily, and steering the gondola came naturally for her. So naturally, in fact, it was like she'd done it her whole life. Arina was so amazing in fact that she was promoted straight to Prima (the highest position, and the position of Akari, Aika, and Alice) from Pair, with the title "Azure Rose". Only Alice had accomplished that feat, but Arina was special.

She'd passed the Prima exam after only two days of being a Pair.

Now that Arina was at the same stage as Akari, she had a large degree of freedom. She assisted in Ai's training (Ai was too awed at Arina's amazing skill to be jealous of the fact Arina had overtaken Ai at so fast a pace). And after hearing Akari's story about her mentor Alicia, Arina immediately decided to do something about it and did the impossible.

She convinced Alicia's husband to let Alicia continue being an undine at the Aria Company.

Soon, Alicia was back at the Aria Company, helping out like she always had. Akari was even happier now, and with three mentors, Ai quickly passed the test to become a Single. Later, Arina helped Akatsuki accept that Alicia was married, and somehow discovered deep hidden feelings for Akari in there. Akatsuki and Akari quickly became a couple.

And in the end, there was nothing more stunning than the beautiful, slender figure of Arina as her long hair flowed in the wind and her gondola pike made ripples in the water as she slowly proceeded through the canal letting enough sun through to enhance her beauty. (This time I wish I was being detailed enough to pay homage to the manga.)

...I think you get the point, because I really can't write like this for the rest of the fic.

-

In the Society...

"You know what I want."

Aster sighed and put her chopsticks back down into her ramen bowl. "No, normally I'll let you have my ramen, but I haven't eaten anything all day."

"Oh, really?" Akai pulled another of her many slasher smiles. "Well, then..."

And she pulled out a vuvuzela and blew it in Aster's face.

"Oh god no not that kyaa no not that!"

Aster screamed and tipped over the ramen bowl as she ran.

"Shame," said Akai. She looked at the jun-akuma. "Okay, we've mastered a bowl of fruit. How about a bowl of ramen?"

The jun-akuma held out a bowl of Korean ramen.

"...close enough." Akai took the bowl and started gobbling it down.

Aster returned, hair disheveled, and panted. She held out a volume of Aria and tossed it at Akai.

"Hurry up and read," said Aster. "We're goin' on a mission kyaa."

Akai blinked, opened the volume, and flipped through it quickly.

"...scenery porn. Geez, someone has nothing better to do than draw all day."

-

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaah~ So pretty!"

Chrys looked around happily as she stared at all of the surroundings.

"Usually when we enter manga fandoms, they're sketchy, but look at the water and the buildings and - "

"Yes, it's pretty, let's just find the Sue," said Akai, rather disgruntled. "I was finishing my bowl of ramen..."

"I'm just thankful she didn't make this into yuri," said Aster. "A lot of fanfic writers do that kyaa."

"Okay then." Akai stared at the scenery of Neo-Venezia. "Well, given that the sparse amount of land in existence is full of stairs, and given that I'm a lazy ass, we're not getting very far if we don't have a boat."

And immediately Akai went over to a nearby gondola, knocked off the undine using it, threw her to the ground, knocked her out, and got onto the boat. "Get in."

"That's not going to be faster than walking," said Aster.

"Y-y-you hit her!" said Chrys.

"Well, I'd rather not walk up stairs, and I've always wanted to ride one of these anyway. Plus, the Sue's not going to kill main characters if we take longer. Get in."

Akai felt more comfortable guiding a gondola with her spear, but the pointed blade quickly stuck too much into the bottom and they had to use the hapless unconscious undine's pike.

Since Aster had actually studied the motions of the undines in the manga, she was in charge of steering it. Aster was nowhere near the level of even being close to passing a test (or getting by unscathed by any undine), but at least they could go forward.

Because of Aster's odd clothing (she obviously wasn't wearing anything normal for an undine, or even anyone on Manhome or Aqua), she got a lot of strange looks but nobody said anything directly to her. After all, if someone saw another person on the street wearing odd clothes, there might be odd looks but nobody would really do anything.

This strange peace persisted until Akai had another of her ideas.

"Hey, we're on a gondola. Isn't the gondolier supposed to sing?"

"Ah, not really. Leave that to Alice and Athena."

"Still, it's boring without it. Here, I'll sing for you..."

And then she yelled in her characteristic loud voice, "CHA-LA! HEAD-CHA-LA!"

This continued on. Some people yelled at her to shut up, and eventually Aster got fed up and put a wide block of ice around Akai's mouth.

"Mmfmfmmmffffmfmfmfmf!" yelled Akai.

-

Ai was biting into her lunch when Arina walked in. Ai blinked.

"Who... who are you?"

Arina pulled back in shock.

"Ai-chan...you don't remember me?"

Akari walked in and looked at Arina. Akari looked at Ai. "Ai-chan, do you know this girl?"

"...Akari-san..." Arina looked about to cry. "You... Where's Akatsuki-san?"

"Akatsuki?" Akari blinked. "Oh, yeah... I haven't heard from him in a while..." She shook her head. "But wait. How do you know him, and who are you?"

"...Akari-san..."

"If you're interested in the company..."

"Akari-san..." Arina, panicked, looked at the ground and saw it.

A sticker backing.

"Um, Miss Mizunashi?" said Akai, walking in with her slasher smile. "I said we were interested in a tour..." She looked at Arina and raised an eyebrow. "Hm...I seem to know this girl. She's an old...chum. Mind if I have a chat with her?"

Akari's expression became cold. "I - "

"Why, it's you!" said Aster, giving her I-will-kill-you face. "We have a lot to... catch up... on..."

Chrys just walked in and blankly said, "...I have nothing to say..."

"You... you..." Arina looked around for an exit. Finally, she defenestrated herself...

...er... threw herself out the window. (I just love long words with eerily specific meanings.)

"Get her!" Akai, always believing in a direct chase route, followed her out the window. She didn't have long to fall as it was two stories.

...Unfortunately, it was a two-story fall.

While Akai was smart enough to put her legs first, she was still human and ended up breaking both legs.

"...ow..." She kept a surprisingly good face, but winced. She turned to the jun-akuma. "And I bet you can't help a broken leg?"

"You idiot," said Aster, appearing by her side. "Now your legs are broken. Come on, we're chasing her." For Arina was now going off in a gondola with the speed of a speedboat with only a pike.

Aster and Chrys loaded Akai into an empty gondola. Aster turned back to Chrys. "Hold on."

She threw aside the pike and pulled out her staff... and drove it into the water.

The gondola took off with the speed of a speedboat and the control of a stampeding rhino. It was surprising that the gondola didn't break from the force of all of the crashes it was making.

"Aaaah..." complained Akai (the pain of her breaking her legs was getting to her).

"Shut up," said Aster. "This is your fault."

"This is not my fault!" yelled Akai vehemently. "Just get to the Sue!"

Aster's gondola smashed forward into Arina's (extremely graceful-looking yet inexplicably speedy) gondola, creating a large smash. Aster wondered how this looked to the other citizens of Neo-Venezia…

Arina smacked Aster in the face, starting to pummel her. Aster flailed, but simply wasn't capable enough to deflect.

Then Akai took out her vuvuzela and blew it in Arina's ear.

Immediately Arina tried to cover her ears.

And quickly, Aster took the opportunity to pick up Arina and shove her into a portal back to the Library.

-

"We caught the Sue. Now I'm bored."

Aster looked around dully, now with nothing to do with her mission over.

"How… how's Akai?" asked Chrys.

"Still in the medical wing. It'll take a while for her legs to heal, but seriously. Jumping off a two-story building? That was stupid, kyaa."
"I was inspired!" yelled Akai from the medical wing.
"Yeah," said Aster. "Can someone take away her vuvuzela? She's blowing it whenever she gets bored."
"Hm…" said Chrys. Then she brightened up. "Wanna go take a trip around Neo-Venezia? It's so pretty…"
"Yeah…and we'll get tipped over when Ai screws up her gondola steering. Eh, let's go get some ramen."
They headed to the kitchen, with Akai yelling in the background, "Remember to get me some too!"

Before The Society

(Note: The POVs jump quite a bit. It goes Aster-Chrys-Akai in order, except for at the beginning, when it's only Aster-Chrys-Aster-Chrys-Akai.)

A mother fae, sitting and listening as she hears her daughter has been chosen for the Ceremony. She will host the power of the great Moon Goddess.

A mother fae, watching as her daughter is left ripped of her soul.

A mother fae, swiping her daughter from the stand in one swift motion and running towards another universe.

A mother fae, seeing a newborn girl in a window.

A mother fae, switching those two girls and transplanting the human girl's soul into her daughter, as the daughter takes the form of the human girl.

A mother fae, handing off the human girl, now soulless, to be consigned to a horrible fate.

---

A girl grows up with a normal family with a normal life. She's an excitable, cheerful girl, albeit a little clumsy. She lives in a normal house with normal parents and goes to a normal school where she lives out her normal days.

She is normal, utterly normal, at least to her – she lives, oblivious to the secrets being hidden behind her, about her.

She is happy.

She is pleased with her life – except for one thing.

There's only one thing she wants in the whole world.

She wants to be special.

She wants to be different.

---

She has just finished her training. She has been training for six years.

She doesn't like it.

It's dull, boring, impractical.

She holds her staff close to her, one that she is accustomed to using. She walks around the fae village and runs into the Room of Portals, to other dimensions.

She is gone before the fae know it.

She finds herself in a new world and finds a school with normal children. Through a mishap involving power leaking everywhere, she convinces everyone that she's always been to this school.

Except for one person.

But it's all right. This new person is fascinated with her. She's always wanted to be special and here she meets a special person, a fae.

And the one who has wanted to escape a boring life has finally made a friend.

---

She's just moved to a new country, and she's not happy with it. It's making new friends, meeting new people. She's very indifferent towards life. She's never really cared too much about anything.

Nor has she questioned life or really cared; she just lived the way she wanted to.

She walks to school every day, takes classes, and goes home – nothing eventful ever happens, until that one day it approaches her.

It is a tiny thing, weak, frail, until she will find out the truth later. But it is an annoyance to her.

She tells it to go away, swats it away, tells it to leave.

It won't.

At first she does not like this unwelcome follower, but soon she finds ways to minorly exploit it, and she eventually learns to live with it, too.

She also learns something else – reality is not necessarily rational.

---

She'll do anything for her best friend, even if it means stalking and flying after her plane when she has to transfer to another country – and she does it.

She lives in a new place, with new customs and a new way of life, and she doesn't care – as long as she's got a friend.

And she adjusts. Slowly, but surely, she adjusts.

It's not long before she and her friend find an underground magical club. She learns to meet other magical beings, to work with them, and even to train a little herself.

Her life is now made up of these sorts of people.

But in the end, what is she, besides a fae?

She's no more than another one of those people.

Her selfish desires give in.

She wants to stand out.

---

As it turns out, she is special.

She holds fate. She has powers, she has a partner, she's got things in her past during times she was too young for her to remember now.

She holds responsibility.

She holds memories of a thousand different versions of herself, all living in different conditions.

She has just found out now how special she is, that she isn't human – a hanyou. She's a mystical being, not the human she's grown used to being all these years.

She can do magic, magic she can barely control because she's just learned it.

She has a curse.

---

She's just met two people completely unlike her yet like her.

Ever since she met the jun-akuma she's known not to trust everything anymore, and these two are proof that reality isn't the way she wants it to be.

And she learns of the dangerous world in front of her, that the jun-akuma near her has actually plunged her into further things about her life. Things that involve her.

Dangerous things. She has risked so much and doesn't even know it.

She is learning things about herself she doesn't always want to know.

And now she is about to risk more.

She's been training to fight now. She refuses to take part in using the powers of a demon, and has been practicing kendo (in Korea, it's called geomdo) lately to learn how to fight. She can't let herself succumb like this.

Of course, the worst moment is when she finds out what that jun-akuma can really do. The day it finally snaps and grows bigger into a full-fledged demoness destroying the world and everything until Mizuho puts a stop to it.

That is what it is capable of.

What is she capable of?

---

She pants.

It is because she needed to use so much power that she eventually lost it and went into that version of herself she hates. The version that doesn't care about "inconsequential things". The version of herself that will abandon her two best friends for the world.

If it hadn't been for Akai she'd be lost; she wouldn't have come back down to earth.

She doesn't like to be logical. At least, she is programmed to not be logical. She has no emotions to guide her to hate logic, but she has that empty shell, created by her powers, that teaches her that logic is bad.

She can't feel.

But she is programmed to act like she can feel.

---

She falls under mental breakdown, for she's just gained a million memories that aren't hers. Well, they are hers. But they are not the hers she wants to have.

She is doomed to never love, for every time she gets close to having a true love relationship, she splits in two – the version that loves and is in love is no longer her.

She is doomed to never find her true happiness in the end, for she is to hold this job forever.

She is doomed to never live as a normal human again.

She is doomed to never leave this world, for she is resurrective-immortal.

There is only one thing she wants.

She wants to be normal.

---

A human making a pact with such a demon, however, is able to control the demon.

However, the cost of this is not being able to use much of the demon's power.

The demon's power and dark ability will be connected directly to the human's soul from then on.

It is possible for the human to continue using emotions with a minimal amount of power and influence.

However, if the human loses control completely, it is possible for the human to go to a different form.

A merger of the human and the demon would create a full-fledged demon, with both the vices of a human and demon.

The combination will be programmed to kill anything in sight, ally or enemy.

Also, there is high risk of the soul permanently falling to darkness.

It is impossible to "purify" the user without forcing the user back into a human form.

Otherwise, the merger will lose humanity while in that form and will continue an endless stream of bloodshed.

She drops the book on her powers that she has just been reading, with only one thought in her head: What have I become?

---

A girl who has never experienced the privilege of having a soul, forever washed in an eternal cycle, suffering the consequences of a lack of emotion, torn back and forth from sanity to insanity to pain to torture. She has grown up quite a bit, but she still has to grow up.

A girl who only wanted to be a little bit special but ended up being plunged further than she ever expected. Now there is no way to break out of the curse she has involved herself in – she will never be able to progress.

A girl who accidentally encountered one small thing because of her slightly sardonic personality, but has found out she has involved herself in a dangerous and risky matter that may drain her of her soul, morality, and humanity.

None of them are free from the influences of Fate.