Story: R + V Monstrous

Imagine the perfect stereotype of a snooty librarian. Prim. Proper. Standing tall, straight. Wearing a business suit and glasses so thick you can’t see her eyes. Hair in a bun. The kind of woman that gives off an aura so sharp you think you might get a paper cut while talking with her. Well. It was only because she took her job seriously. Books were Serious Business, with capital letters and everything. Books were important. No, not even necessarily the books themselves. The words within them. Libraries were a place for books, which were places for words, which were places for ideas. A library was a thinking place. Without thought, without imagination, sentient beings - monster or human - had no place existing in this world or any other.

Which is why it always set her on edge just a fraction when a young couple came to the library with rather obvious alternative intentions. A nervous first-year, with a rather attractive beauty on his arm. A twinge of jealousy spiked through this particular librarian: The student had a chest twice her own size. Made her feel rather inadequate.

“Hi?” the boy nervously said. “W-We were looking for, uh, family history. Right? Aono family.”

Family history, was it? What an imaginative euphemism for their blatant intentions! Sullying the sacred library with their wanton acts in the darkest, least-ventured portion of the building. Still. She could hardly refuse them without evidence; a mere suspicion would not be sufficient. Therefore…

“Annie, pray come here a moment!” she called, and beside her a smaller version of herself appeared as if from thin air. Or like she’d always been there. The girl was staring quite intently at the pair, and it was quite obvious that she had the same suspicions as herself. A fine assistant indeed! When they first met, she had been a great deal more manic. Good at organising everything but herself. She could walk down a shelf while holding a conversation, and without seeming to even glance at the shelves have them all in alphabetical order even if some troublemaker had deliberately gone out of their way to put it in the wrong place.

“You rang?” Annie warbled, never taking her eye off the lustful pair for a second.

“Take them to the genealogy section,” the librarian sniffed. “Give them any assistance they require. In particular, find details of the Aono family tree, and all recorded details on their history.”

There. That should keep them from expressing their wicked, perverted intentions. If anyone could take care of those two, it would have to be Annie!

<hr>
This library assistant was certainly giving them several things all at once. Directions. The evil eye. The heebie jeebies. It felt to Tsukune as though he was being watched constantly. He hadn’t caught her blink, and there was something really odd about her walk. Great big lunges on legs too small to support them.

“Used to have a hunchback,” the girl said. Her voice was a deep, resonating bass that conflicted quite blatantly with… Everything else about her. “Still not used to walking like this. Do you smell peaches? Or is that strawberries?”

Tsukune felt a chill down his spine. Was his power starting to influence this girl as well? He bit his lip and turned away towards Kurumu, who was staring at him doe eyed and affectionately. She was quite deliberately pulling his arm into her cleavage. No complaints there. However…

The girl ahead of him was hardly unattractive, even with the reveal of a former hunchback slightly altering his perception and those clothes giving off a pretty severe aura of unapproachability. Still. The idea that every single girl he spent time conversing with might fall under the influence of whatever this was, well, that wasn’t entirely resting well on him. For one thing, it would certainly piss off all the boys even more than they already were. Which was plenty already, thank you.

“Something wrong?” Kurumu asked, squeezing his arm even tighter. “You seem tense. Would you like me to do something about that?”

“No flirting in the library,” Annie sharply interrupted with a haughty sniff.

Uh oh. Tsukune could feel tension alright but it wasn't him. Kurumu was giving Annie’s non-hunched back a death glare. She slipped off his arm and slid across the floor in front of the assistant, hands on hips, smugly smirking.

“Oh, I see how it is!” Kurumu began. “You’re the sort that hasn’t ever had a boyfriend, so you take it out on any couple you see!”

“H-hey, Kurumu!” Tsukune interjected. “We didn’t come here to start a-”

“A typical succubus attitude,” Annie replied. “It is only natural for your kind to think primarily with your nether regions, when your feeding and mating habits are so inextricably interconnected.”

“Stuck-up virgin!”

“Not that it is any of your business, but I have quite an active social life outside these four walls. While at work, I aim for a professional attitude at all times. No, Miss Kurumu. I do not resent you for having a boyfriend. I resent you because his grandmother ruined my mother’s life.”

There was a sudden burst of power from… Annie, probably. A bright light began to shine around her like a blinding aura. This was bad. Another fight so soon? What had she said about his grandmother? Tsukune considered his options. Kurumu was already extending her nails, but what if-

“Amusing strategy!” Annie declared without even raising her voice or looking in Tsukune’s direction. “However, my kind were bred to bond mentally to a single master, making us immune to mental effects of others. Though it must be noted that your incubus power makes it further imperative that you are captured before you become too adept at your abilities to contain!”

Tch! It had been worth a try. He had hoped that by taking Kurumu’s powers into himself, he might’ve been able to charm Annie into not attacking them while simultaneously ensuring that Kurumu wouldn’t do anything too hasty. No such luck there, and come to think of it if this had worked then it would be a prime opportunity to get some information from an apparently useful resource.

Annie took her glasses off and turned towards Tsukune, the ominous glow seeming somehow to glow darker. Like it was sucking out the light all around them. As a side effect this removed the glare from her thick glasses that made it impossible to see her eyes through them - which makes sense, really, now that he thought about it because if the glasses were so thick you couldn’t see through them they were failing miserably at their designed task and this was no time for tangents - And they were manic, bloodshot. No colour in the iris, just a black void surrounded with red pulsing veins.

“I Evoke The Dark Sepulcher Of Oustu!” Annie began, and books on the shelves around them began to levitate from the shelves as though pulled out by unseen hands. This was bad! This was very bad! What sort of attack was she about to launch? No, it would be better not to wonder. The smart thing to do would be either to flee or prevent her from launching it in the first place.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Kurumu yelled, and she leaped to tackle Annie to the ground. The ominous glowing stopped, and even without her powers Kurumu had next to no difficulty in pinning the assistant to the floor. “I won’t let you hurt my Tsukune!”

“Wait, Kurumu!” Tsukune said. “Don’t hurt her.” He knelt down beside Annie, who wasn’t even struggling. Simply lying there with a smug look on her face. Weird, but he didn’t really know what to make of it. “Listen. Please, we don’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted to know a little more about my abilities. You seem to know a little about it, so would you be able to maybe help out?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk!” Annie chuckled. “So that is how you were able to seduce a vampire and a succubus without any other abilities of your own! How long will that kind soul last in that monstrous form, I wonder? With the power of an incubus at your command, unwary women will fall to your feet by the wayside in worshipful adoration, making you grow in strength and power until none in this world or any other can stand in your way. You are the product of a shameful mistake that ruined my family, and now…

“You said you didn’t want to hurt anyone?” Annie said. Her smile was damn near manic now. “Unfortunately, the library won’t see it that way. Nor will the enhancements designed to keep fights from breaking out. Such a shame you had to interrupt. I was merely casting a spell that would reorganise the books on the shelves into their proper place.”

Now that she mentioned it… Hadn’t everything gone all quiet all of a sudden? Tsukune looked up towards Kurumu and saw that she had become entirely black and white. She was clearly speaking, but no sound came out. He tried to ask her what was the matter, but to his rising horror Tsukune realised that he too was incapable of speech. And his hand was entirely drained of its usual colour…

“Quiet in the library,” Annie said, easily extracting herself from Kurumu’s grip. “Now, if you’ll excuse me? I must alert my fellows while the library itself detains you.”

<hr>
At this particular moment in time you could easily say that Moka’s favourite anything in the world was Tsukune. Without question. Being in that boy’s presence made her feel alive in a way that she could never express. He was so kind. So thoughtful of others. So gentle and fun to be around, handsome, caring, thoughtful.

The fact that he was positively out of this world at sexually satisfying her was icing on the cake. But that’s rather beside the point. Even though Tsukune was her favouritest anything right now, that didn’t mean she couldn’t become affected by other things. Like, say, cute things. Adorable things. Adorable people. Little witches staring up at her doe eyed and professing unceasing adoration.

“That’s… Nice?” Moka carefully said, patting the young girl on the shoulder. This made the witch squeeze her just a little bit tighter, not noticing her hat fall to the ground. “I’m sorry, what was your name again? I did not quite catch it just now.”

“Yukari Sendo!” the witch enthusiastically replied, then spun out of the glomp to press her hands against her cheeks and, apparently to herself proclaim, “Oh! She talked to me! She actually talked to me! I gave her my name when she asked for it, which means she knows who I am.”

<i>“Careful,”</i> her inner voice said. Typical. Always had to find the bad side in everything. <i>“Or you’ll end up just like her around that boy. I believe the term is starstruck.”</i>

Hmph. It was strange, but ever since Inner Moka had started talking to her, Outer Moka was really starting to resent her. She felt underestimated, constantly criticised. It was like having a nagging grandmother trapped inside your body always telling you that you were doing things incorrectly or unsafely or… Well! She was hardly the rebellious sort to begin with and certainly didn’t much care for confrontation. But this constant nagging was wearing her down quite a bit. This witch seemed like a nice enough girl. So what if she was a little starstruck?

“Hello, Yukari,” Moka said, leaning down slightly to look at Yukari at eye level. “Would you like to be my friend?”

Inexplicably, Yukari fainted in slow motion and then popped back up to her feet while nodding enthusiastically as though nothing else had happened. A little bit disconcerting, but reality isn’t something you should take too much for granted when a witch was around. Even if she didn’t believe in the stereotypes, Moka had certainly heard them.

“Alright, then!” Moka said with a slight twirl. “This is so wonderful. I’ve had terrible luck with friends, you see. Since coming to this school I’ve already made some! Tsukune, Kurumu and now Yukari! Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Tsukune…” Yukari sadly said. She violently shook her head, and somehow retrieved her hat from the ground without Moka noticing. “Ah! That’s right! I wanted to tell you! That boy is no good! No, ma’am! He’s drenched head to toe in witch magic and it clearly has some sort of mental and physical effect on those around him! You should stay away from him, Moka! Please? For me?”

<i>“Well, isn’t that interesting? It seems the young witch is more observant than you. Take heed of her warning and create some distance.”</i>

How terribly disappointing. Moka felt a sharp sting of pain in her heart. Look at this girl. Staring up at her with one part reverence and the rest defiance. She was really trying to warn her away from Tsukune, wasn’t she? Then again, she did seem to know a little more about his abilities. Maybe she could surprise him with a little information…? Ooh! He might let her have a bit of his blood for that, then maybe a little bit of celebration sex as well!

“How exciting! Tell me more,” Moka said with her best smile, which she didn’t quite yet realise was warm enough to melt a glacier at half a mile's distance. “Please? For me?”