Again thank you to all the people who wrote in reply to the teaser
or the full chapter 1 of this fic. They are the reason I was able to
complete this chapter so quickly. Please tell me if this lives up to
your expectations or not. Writing an original fic is more difficult
in some ways and I want to know if I'm getting everything right, or
at least keeping things interesting.
I also did a rough sketch of Kumiko so you have a better idea of
what this demon-girl looks like, though I may be changing it
around it a bit before I'm done:
http://www.thekeep.org/~amm/images/Kumiko.jpg
***
Kumiko the Demon-girl
(A Lime-flavored Original Fic)
By Ammadeau
Roy.Fokker@UNSpacy.org
http://www.thekeep.org/~amm/
Chapter 2: Paranormal Calculus
***
Being late risers by their very nature, it was still a bit early
for most college students to be up and about unless they had a
class, but these three were men on a mission. They met in the
small room that they had managed to secure for their club's use
near the beginning of the year, to discuss new theories and
coordinate their activities for the day. The room was formerly a
large janitor's closet, it was now a very cramped club office that
still reeked with the fumes of cleaning supplies long since used up
and forgotten.
Fortunately, two of the club members were of slender build,
one bordering on anorexic, but the third nearly made up for the
deficiencies of his companions in bulk. They couldn't afford to
offend him though as all of the video and surveillance equipment
was his. Besides, a club with only three members couldn't exactly
be choosy on who it admitted.
There was one unofficial member who wasn't even aware
of the club's existence. That's exactly the way the others wanted
and needed it to be, because without him the club would be without
its purpose.
All around the three were the fruits of their mission; from
the many photos stuck to the walls, to the stack of videos by the
small TV labeled with things like 'Experiment #3' and 'The Sakura
Park Incident', but especially the large printout that held a special
place on a table in the center of the room. That was the List, the
sinister proof of their experiment.
It bore the name of every female that attended the college,
and some names written in at the bottom, including a few male
ones. Next to each name were two check boxes; one for no and the
other for yes. Nearly 3/4ths of the names had the 'no' box checked,
and of the rest, only one was marked 'yes.' This name, Natsumi
Takemori, was crossed out with the cryptic notation 'dsql for bng
lz' written next to it.
Eichi Kitanuma had just been an average Japanese ex-high
schooler, planning to go to college and become a salaryman like
his father. That was when his cousin in America had sent him
tapes of a TV series where ordinary people uncovered odd
paranormal activities in seemingly normal locales each week. All
of the sudden, his eyes were opened to the supernatural that
supposedly existed all around him, if he could only uncover it.
In college he found two other like-minded individuals
among the freshman and they quickly formed the Paranormal Club,
searching for any evidence of the supernatural in a seemingly
mundane world. Unfortunately, they didn't find any. They looked
and looked all around campus, but there wasn't a sign of an alien or
a ghost anywhere. Not even an ancient artifact with mystical
powers left by a forgotten civilization.
That was when vice-president Satoru Aoda discovered the
answer in one of the books on the occult that he was constantly
reading. It said that the supernatural doesn't work in big ways, but
in small, subtle ones, and the way to discover the supernatural was
to find something in your normal life that was just a bit off and see
if some rational explanation could be found for it. If not, most
likely some supernatural agency was at work. Then it talked
something about human sacrifices and bodily fluids so the group
wisely decided to ignore the rest.
That was when the club was given it's purpose. That was
when they found _him_.
Ken's luck tended to above average in any matter that didn't
involve women in some way. He had believed that this was due to
some higher power that felt sorry for his datelessness,
friendlessness, and complete lack of direction in life, though after
meeting Kumiko he wasn't so sure. In any case, he'd been very
lucky to find a single apartment close to the college with
reasonable rates which meant that normally he didn't have to worry
about being late for class. He had stayed in the dorms his first year
of school, but was driven out by roommates who didn't want his
bad luck with women to rub off on them.
Kumiko kept a firm grip on Ken's hand as he practically fell
down the stairs, dashed out the door while narrowly avoiding
getting hit with it as someone opened it from the other side, and
across a street where the light had changed to green less than a
second after he had stepped off the curb. All of which Ken
completely failed to notice, so focused he was on his goal; the tall
buildings of the college that stood before him.
The demon-girl was floating behind him at first, before
remembering that for some reason in the human world, humans
couldn't fly. They could in Hell; or at least she had assumed that
all of them could and the those who didn't simply chose not to.
Remembering that Ken didn't want to attract any attention, she
skipped along as she followed close behind, wide grin on her lips
as she felt the wind blowing through her hair.
*This is fun,* she thought, noticing things around her
without having to worry about missing anything; observing for her
own sake rather than as a duty. *I should have taken a vacation
years ago.*
Kumiko was a demon of observance, but having so many
new things to notice and think about, she can be forgiven for
missing a few details. Like the way that other college students
stopped and stared as the two of them passed, talking over
something in hurried whispers while pointing the couple out to
their fellow students.
When Ken abruptly turned a corner, she just missed seeing
a thin freshman take one look at the both of them before fainting
dead away. Luckily, his two companions caught him before he had
a chance to hit the ground, the more heavy set one whipping out a
camera and taking a few snap shots as the couple passed.
Ken skidded to a halt before the lecture hall, gasping for
air. In his rush to get to class on time, he had completely forgotten
about demons wanting to alternatively kill him and eat his soul
whole or have sex with him and munch on his soul bit by bit. He
was reminded a second later when Kumiko, who had been looking
off in another direction and hadn't realized that he had stopped,
suddenly collided with him, sending them both rolling and
tumbling to the ground in a untidy heap.
Ken discovered that Kumiko was wearing a bra after all as
he could feel its embroidery, along with the two soft mounds that
they so snugly fit, pressing up against his face through the thin
fabric of her T-shirt. D-cup, he guessed idly, and then felt the
sudden urge to smack himself for it.
"You're such a good slave, Ken-chan!" Kumiko told him
with a fit of giggles as her strong hands attempted to push him
deeper into her cleavage, which he had to admit was a very
comfortable place to be if you didn't need to breathe.
"Mmnmnph!" Ken shouted, muffled by the soft cotton of
the demon-girl's T-shirt.
Kumiko suddenly burst out laughing so loud that people
who weren't already attracted to their spectacle turned in her
direction. Windows were opened and conversations halted in mid-
sentence. "That... that tickles!" she managed to get out in-between
fresh waves of laughter.
While it hadn't worked the way he had expected, Ken
noticed that Kumiko's grip had loosened enough to remove his
head from the comfortable yet suffocating place between her
breasts. He gasped for air like a pearl diver and looked up to see
the demon-girl in her human guise kneeling next to him. She was
grinning at him in a fairly wicked way with her cheeks flushed
from laughing as she reached out for him again.
Ken braced himself for another dive into her cleavage, but
instead Kumiko leaned forward to kiss him passionately, her
tongue somehow forked again as it eagerly explored his mouth.
Though still feeling much out of his element, Ken forgot
everything and kissed her back as best he could. For a while they
remained like that, as if nothing else existed, until once again
gasping for air, Ken pulled away.
He stood up, dusted himself off a bit, and offered Kumiko
his hand. She smiled up at him as she took hold of the offered
hand and yanked hard, launching herself to her feet with a bounce.
Ken winced in pain, but did his best to hide it when she turned to
look in his direction.
"That was fun!" Kumiko declared as she gave him her 'v for
victory' pose again, which made the back of his neck itch. He was
thankful that he had grown out his black hair long enough to cover
that odd and unwanted tattoo.
Ken sighed and turned to enter the building in case there
was still some small chance class hadn't started yet. Only then did
he observe the crowd of onlookers that thronged the courtyard,
though he failed to notice the rail-like student with the video
camera in the back or the pudgy one who snapped off pictures
every time Ken wasn't looking in his direction.
Wishing there was some hole nearby that he could crawl
into and hide himself away from their looks and whispers, Ken
groaned and said, "Come on, Kumiko. Let's get to class."
"Okay, Ken-chan!" the demon-girl told him cheerfully.
Before following him in, however, she turned to face the crowd
and waved both her hands up in the air, shouting, "Bye-bye,
everyone! Have fun in class!"
Ken groaned again, tempted to wait for Kumiko inside just
so the humiliation would end for now, but managed to stop himself
just in time. He remembered the chain that would suddenly appear
around his neck and make him even more humiliated, though he
was currently having a hard time believing it was possible.
Instead, he stood with his back to the crowd and did his best to
tune out their shouts and jeers.
Before he knew it, Kumiko was at his side again, slipping
her arm around his and leaning her head on his shoulder, her long
blue hair tickling lightly as his neck. "Shall we go in now?" she
asked with a sensual whisper.
"Um, yeah," Ken managed to say as he lead her inside,
decided that if she wasn't out to kill him or make him her slave, he
wouldn't mind having Kumiko around, even if she was a demon-
girl.
The lecture hall was silent as Ken and Kumiko entered, the
doors shutting behind with a loud clank. Everyone looked up to
them in surprise, all but the instructor who was staring at an old
pocket watch intently. Ken thought he could actually hear the tick
tick tick of that watch, only to realize that it was just the sound of
the wall clock right above his head.
Abruptly, the instructor's head snapped up and looked
directly at Ken. The old man had the most intense eyes Ken had
ever encountered, so that even at that distance, he felt as if his
teacher could peer right through him, down to his soul.
"You seem to have arrived precisely on time, Mr.
Iwakami," the instructor told him in a voice that sounded highly
insulted by this fact, though this could have been a combination of
the man's accent and Ken's imagination. "Please be seated," the
teacher added, his sentence punctuated by the loud snap of closing
his pocket watch.
"Yes, sensei," Ken replied immediately and made way
down the row, looking for two empty seats.
"Who is that with you?" the teacher asked, freezing Ken in
his tracks. "I explicitly stated in my syllabus that there are to be no
observers in my class."
With a trace of fear, Ken looked up to meet the clear blue
eyes of his instructor's, eyes which saw all but gave away nothing.
"She's... she's a new student, sensei. I was just... showing her the
way to class," he explained nervously, silently hoping that that brat
of a demon had come through and registered Kumiko already.
The old man's expression didn't so much as flicker as he
stated, "Bring her forward."
"Yes, sensei," Ken replied, bowing his head and doing as
he was told.
Dr. Josef Strauss was one of the most well-known members
of the college's faculty, mostly for all the rumors that circulated
about him. They were probably so numerous because the actual
facts known about him were so few.
He appeared to be of German descent, looking to be a well
preserved man in his sixties with greying hair and well-trimmed
mustache, though his actual age was unknown. He possessed no
known friends or relatives. He had been the head of the college's
math department for as long as anyone could remember, holding a
doctorate in mathematics, specialization unknown. He walked
with a limp, though only used a cane in cold weather. He was very
meticulous and precise, both in his appearance and the way in
which he conducted his classes. He never let his students off easy,
but was never cruel to them either.
The rumors also pegged him as some important figure who
had plastic surgery to hide from the world, and he had been
guessed to be everyone from Adolph Hitler to Albert Einstein.
"I received a memo before class," Dr. Strauss told Ken and
Kumiko as he searched around in his briefcase, leather that shone
with so much polishing that it was nearly blinding to look at. "I
thought it was some sort of prank, receiving a new student today of
all days... Ah, here it is."
The aged instructor studied the yellow memo carefully, and
then brought that same intense gaze to study Kumiko. "You are...
Kumiko Akuma, correct?"
/"Ja! That's me!"/ Kumiko replied happily in German, not
seeming at all fearful by his stare. Ken on the other hand looked
like he'd crack at any moment from just being so close to the
teacher who intimidated him so much. He wasn't even sure what it
was, there was just something about the guy that chilled him.
/"You speak German?"/ Dr. Strauss asked her, only a very
faint mark of curiosity in his normally aloof tone.
/"Of course!"/ Kumiko replied cheerfully, not mentioning
that any demon could speak any human language. /"It would be
hard for me to observe and report on people if I didn't understand
their language."/
Dr. Strauss blinked at her statement, but recovered quickly
as he bowed to her slightly with a almost invisible smile on his
lips. /"Welcome to my class, fraulein. It may be a bit difficult for
you to catch up on things with half the semester over already, but
I'll do what I can to bring you up to speed."/
The low hum of rapid, whispered speculation began to fill
the room. Dr. Strauss did tend to be a bit nicer to his female
students, and nicer still to those who could speak German, but such
an extreme reaction, for him at least, seemed to be unprecedented.
The class began to study the new girl intently, all except for most
of the guys who had been doing so the moment she'd walked into
the classroom.
"If you will both take a seat," Dr. Strauss told Kumiko and
Ken, "then I can begin class."
Ken noted that his instructor had to be in a good mood not
to have a word or two for delaying the start of class. Ken had
caused a bit of commotion in the past and Dr. Strauss had spent
five minutes patiently explaining to his student why the time right
before class was not a good for the asking of dates.
Not wanting to chance another lecture, Ken grabbed hold of
Kumiko's hand and brought her over to a more empty section of
the lecture hall near the back. He was well aware of the looks and
whispers this caused, but he had a feeling that left to her own
devices, the demon-girl would come up with even better ways of
embarrassing him.
Ken took a seat one in from the aisle, sat down, and started
to get his things ready for class, doing his best to look like a
productive student. He had expected Kumiko to take the seat he
had left for her, and was more than a bit surprised when something
large, soft, and a bit heavy landed right in his lap with only a small
bounce. Looking into the demon-girl's now clear blue eyes only
inches from his, he realized that he should have known better.
Kumiko squirmed a bit as she made herself comfortable in
Ken's lap and delighted in the rapid changes of expression that this
caused on his face. Finally feeling quite comfortable, she gave him
a quick kiss on the lips and leaned her head against his shoulder as
she had seen two people in the park do before, angling so she could
watch both Ken and the instructor at once.
The reaction of the other students was mixed but vocal.
Most of the women were disgusted by the shameful way the new
student was acting in class, while most of the men seethed with
envy to see Ken treated that way by a beautiful girl he obviously
didn't deserve. The only one who seemed pleased by this display
was a tall student who watched covertly through a window via his
video camera. He was only disappointed with his lack of sound
reception.
"Mr. Iwakami!" Dr. Strauss snapped with an unusually
clear note of irritation in his voice. "The classroom is not a place
for such... inappropriate activities. Please desist this minute!"
/"But teacher, you told the two of us to take a seat. How
can we both share the same seat comfortably if I don't sit in his
lap?"/ Kumiko asked, blinking in confusion as she snuggled up to
Ken.
Almost immediately, Dr. Strauss's look of irritation
changed to that of mild embarrassment. "I suppose I should have
made myself more clear. My Japanese is still imperfect and I
sometimes have trouble with plurals. I meant that the both of you
should each take a separate seat, fraulein."
Noting that the demon-girl seemed to be weighing this as
something more of a suggestion than a command, Ken whispered
to her, "I think you should do as he says, Kumiko. You don't want
to get in trouble on your first day of class." Part of Ken would
have much preferred that she stay right where she was, but the rest
of him couldn't put up with all the stares and whispers this was
generating much longer.
"Oh, all right," Kumiko said with a sigh after a minute of
thought. She gave Ken another quick kiss on the lips, hopped out
of his lap, plunked herself down in the seat next to him, and then
leaned over to wrap her arm around his waist and lie her head on
his shoulder.
Ken wondered if her being so touchy had something to do
with being able to drain off his soul better, but decided now wasn't
the time to ask. "Ah, I don't think you should be doing that either,
Kumiko," he whispered tactfully, frantically struggling to think up
some excuse that would avoid Dr. Strauss's wrath. "It's... a bit
distracting and I really need to pay attention in this class. Please?"
"Anything for my sex slave," Kumiko replied loud enough
for the students closest to the pair to hear clearly, which spread to
the rest of the class like a lit match dropped on a pool of gasoline.
The demon-girl failed to notice this as she sat up straight and faced
the front of the class, though her right hand snaked out, her fingers
circling around Ken's left.
With a small sigh, he decided that this was okay, even if
she was probably doing it to siphon off his soul.
"If there are no objections," Dr. Strauss suddenly said just
under a shout, also making clear that objections wouldn't be a good
idea, "I shall finally open this class. Since I believe we've wasted
enough time already, put your textbooks and notes away so we can
begin your mid-term."
Kumiko looked over in surprise as Ken clunked himself in
the head with his own textbook. The demon-girl frowned a bit as
she watched this, not used to having to draw conclusions from the
things she observed. In Hell, they actually preferred her to give a
report that was entirely factual and contained none of her thoughts
or opinions whatsoever. Was this some sort of human ritual?
None of the other students we're doing it, but she couldn't think of
any other purpose for it. She needed more information. "Ken-
chan, what's a 'mid-term'?"
"A mid-term is a examination that a student takes in the
middle of a semester to show how much he or she has learned,
fraulein," Dr. Strauss explained as he handed Ken a test, and after
only a moment's hesitation, handed one to Kumiko as well. "I
think you should take this as well as it will help me to judge your
level of knowledge. Answer as best you can and don't worry about
it. For unlike Mr. Iwakami, it will have no effect on your grade."
/"Ja!"/ Kumiko agreed with a nod as the teacher passed
them to finish handing out the tests. Noting with a quick glance
around the room that everyone else, including Ken, seemed intent
on their mid-terms, she turned to study the sheets of paper the
instructor had handed her and frowned once again. Kumiko leaned
back and began to scratch her head, causing one of her little bat
wings to briefly pop out of her hair.
Seeing this, Ken frantically scanned the room, but everyone
else was now focused on their mid-term and hadn't noticed the
demon-girl's unusual head gear. He tried to get a pencil with his
left hand, but found that Kumiko was unwilling to release her iron
grip. Instead, he silently handed her the pencil he had been using
and dug out a spare one for himself, all the time careful not to
attract the attention of Dr. Strauss.
"Thanks!" she said with a smile and then used the eraser
end to scratch the back of her head, starting to giggle to herself.
"That's much better!"
Ken's eyes quickly located the instructor, but he was on the
other end of the lecture hall and didn't seem to have heard. "Use it
to fill in the answers on the test," he whispered to her urgently. In
another class he might not have minded so much, but Dr. Strauss
really put the fear of failure in him.
Kumiko nodded enthusiastically and bent close to her test,
carefully drawing the characters for her name as if having just
learned it for the first time, studying each mark with a small smile
of accomplishment.
Ken sighed and did his best to tune her out as he focused on
the mid-term before him. Almost immediately he was mentally
kicking himself for not having studied harder. He could have
blamed Kumiko for intruding into his life and making him forget
all about the test, but that was actually far from the truth. After
getting turned down for a date yet again, he had watched an anime
marathon to cheer himself up and consequently had been too tired
to study.
A low, pleasant melody drifted over to Ken who began to
hum along without even being consciously aware of it, at least not
at first. He blinked suddenly, realizing that he had been staring at
the same question for five minutes now without even starting to
consider the answer, his concentration completely on the song that
he was doing his best to imitate.
Ken slowly looked over to see that Kumiko was doodling
on her test as she hummed a maddeningly addictive tune to herself.
It was something that was so light and carefree that it made one's
troubles seem so far away. This was until one realized that it only
made troubles worse by ignoring them and humming along.
Listening closely almost against his own will, Ken found
that Kumiko wasn't only the one humming. The students nearby
had picked up the tune as they sat staring at their tests, their pencils
limp in their hands. It seemed to be spreading outward to the rest
of the class as well. It was so low and subtle that the other students
weren't aware of it until they had already fallen under its power.
*Is this the way demons work?* Ken thought to himself,
feeling a bit awed by the spectacle of a song passing like an
airborne virus to his classmates. The insidious music could end up
failing the entire class if it wasn't stopped, significantly hurting
their chances of a passing grade. It was definitely bringing a small
piece of Hell into their lives, but Ken hadn't thought Kumiko
capable of being this subtle.
"Would you please stop that?" Ken whispered to her testily,
thinking of what would happen to him if the entire class found out
that he was to blame for their failure by bringing a demon to class.
The result would not be pretty.
"Stop?" Kumiko asked him in confusion. "But I'm not
done yet. I thought I was supposed to finish the mid-term."
"I meant that song you were singing..." Ken's voice faded
as he looked over Kumiko's test. She did seem to be answering the
questions, though he couldn't tell immediately if her answers were
correct because he hadn't gotten that far himself yet.
What stunned him into silence though was the pictures she
had drawn all along the border, each depicting a scene with the two
of them in a cartoonish fashion. There was one of their first
meeting when she had shouted at him to make sure he wasn't deaf.
Another was of her standing over him whip in hand and tugging at
the chain around his neck. There were a few others which hadn't
actually occurred, and Ken hoped that they never would. He found
the one of her riding him like a horse while using the chain as a
bridle particularly disturbing.
"Mr. Iwakami!" Dr. Strauss's voice rang out clearly in the
silence of the lecture hall, the only other sound the scratching of
pencils as the other students resumed work, unaware of their
musical interlude. "While it is clear that you are... quite close to
Ms. Akuma, that does not give you the right to look at her test
during an exam!"
"I didn't mean to!" Ken answered honestly as he frantically
tried to think up an excuse that would prevent the dreaded
automatic zero for cheating. "She asked me a question and I
started to help her without thinking. It was an honest mistake! I
didn't even notice what she put down for an answer!"
While Ken made his defense and Dr. Strauss thought it
over, Kumiko had gone back to her test, her strokes confident and
quick now as she hummed a faster tune just loud enough that the
students nearest to her began to pick it up, closing their eyes and
starting to draw randomly with their pencils as they did so. Before
they could spread it to others, however, the demon-girl stopped
humming, threw her pencil down on the table with a loud snap, and
shouted, "I'm done!"
Exclamations of confusion and disbelief echoed in the
lecture hall. The average student had made it to the second page
while the swiftest and most skilled, or the ones who just didn't
care, had arrived at the third. Not even the fastest or most
apathetic among them had yet to reach the forth and final page.
Even Dr. Strauss seemed unsure of what to make of this.
/"Perhaps you should check over your answers to make sure you've
answered each problem correctly, fraulein,"/ he suggested with a
slight note of amusement in his voice.
/"Why?"/ Kumiko asked him, utterly baffled. She picked
up her test to study it, then giggled suddenly and began to add a bit
more detail to one of the scenes she had drawn earlier.
"If you believe that you are truly finished, please bring it to
me so I can start to go over it," Dr. Strauss told her, in Japanese
this time as he noted the rest of the class seemed to want to know
what was going on. At least if they knew what was happening,
they wouldn't be so curious and could go back to their mid-terms.
/"Ja!"/ Kumiko shouted with a wide grin as she shot out of
her seat and ran down the aisle towards the instructor.
"Oh, no," Ken said to himself, understanding a bit late what
was about to happen. His worst fears were realized when Kumiko
went a little too far from him and a spiked collar materialized
around his neck, along with at chain that tugged him right out of
his seat and into the aisle, where he was dragged along face-first
behind Kumiko who hadn't yet noticed his predicament.
*They don't clean the rugs much in here, do they?* was
Ken's first thought, though his second was a bit more relevant to
his current situation. *How the heck am I going to explain a chain
appearing out of thin air like this?*
The chain had actually vanished after his rough landing, but
it had been visible long enough that it would have been hard to
miss seeing it with the commotion that it had caused.
Kumiko turned around in surprise when something yanked
at her wrist. Spotting Ken crumpled on the ground, she bent over
to peer closely at him, causing a few male students to stand up in
their seats to get a better view of... what was going on.
"Why didn't you follow me?" Kumiko asked, sounding
both confused and slightly irritated. "You're my slave, you're
suppose to always be by me side!"
*If this whole thing wasn't already embarrassing enough,*
Ken thought with a groan, tempted to stay right where he was
down on the ground and avoid the looks of his fellow students. "I
didn't realize you were leaving until you were already gone."
"You really need to pay closer attention," Kumiko lectured
as she picked him up off the ground and began to dust him off.
"When I sit up, you sit up. When I go someplace, you follow...
unless you're leading the way. Okay?"
"I'll try and do better next time," Ken told her, feeling
afraid to disappoint her, and not only because of her whip or the
fact that she could kill him at any time. He had once hoped that
she would find someone else's soul to steal, but now found that he
might feel a bit sad if she did. It was an odd thought and he wasn't
sure what to make of it.
"Good!" Kumiko shouted with a smile, her arms still
around him as she leaned in for a quick peck on her lips. Then her
smile grew hungry as she inclined her head and kissed him
passionately, molding her body to his.
The parts of Ken that normally protested giving in to such
behavior just shrugged and said, 'Things couldn't get any worse.'
Hormones given free rein, Ken's arms slipped around the demon-
girl's waist as he kissed her back as deeply as he could, beginning
to sweat a bit as her temperature began to rise.
After a few moments, it was Kumiko who broke off the
kiss, leaning her head on Ken's shoulder as she whispered to him,
"You're such a good slave, Ken-chan."
Ken didn't get a chance to react to this, because out of the
corner of his eye he noticed that Dr. Strauss was glaring at him
with a look of naked anger. Ken was so surprised that he
automatically took a step back in fear for his life, forgetting that he
was holding the demon-girl so closely to him at the moment. Once
again he fell to the floor, this time with Kumiko landing
comfortably in his lap.
"Mr. Iwakami!!" the instructor's exclamation echoed loudly
in the lecture hall. "This is a classroom; it is neither a bordello nor
a circus! Whatever your feelings for Ms. Akuma may be, they
don't justify you leaping out of your seat like some kind of
demented acrobat or kissing her in the aisle, especially when you
have an important test to take! In all my years of teaching, I have
never witness such... reprehensible behavior as I have today! I'm
afraid you have left me with no choice but to..."
/"What about my test, teacher?"/ Kumiko asked as she held
up the document in question, waving it around to catch his
attention. /"Didn't you want to grade it now?"/
Dr. Strauss's anger immediately changed to that of mild
confusion, glancing around the room like a sleepwalker awakening
in a strange place. /"Why yes I did,"/ he replied finally, his
confusion fading as he took the papers from Kumiko's hand and
went back to look them over, seeming to have forgotten all about
Ken's little display.
The rest of the class glanced back and forth between the
three players in the impromptu drama, collectively shrugged, and
went back to their mid-terms.
Ken sighed deeply. He had been sure that Dr. Strauss was
about to flunk him before Kumiko had interrupted. He looked
down at the demon-girl still in his arms who was staring up at the
ceiling, counting all the cracks as she pointed them out one by one,
and told her, "Thanks."
"For what?" she asked, sounding unconcerned with the
answer as she continued to count to herself, her lips moving but not
even the faintest sound emerging from them.
"For distracting Dr. Strauss at the right moment like that. If
you hadn't, he would have failed me," Ken told her gratefully. A
moment later he realized that he would have never been in trouble
in the first place if it wasn't for her. *Why am I thanking her?!*
Kumiko giggled to herself as she sat up quickly and looked
back to say to him with a smile, "He still might if you don't finish
your test."
Ken bit his tongue to keep himself from shouting out in
exasperation, which only caused the demon-girl to giggle more.
He was on his feet in seconds and running back to his seat, all the
while staring at the wall clock with a sick feeling in his stomach.
He couldn't believe that all the recent nonsense had taken so long.
Forget about checking over his answers, he'd be lucky to get to the
last question.
In his haste, he failed to realize that he was a bit heavier.
This was because the moment he turned away from her, Kumiko
and sprung up and hung on to his back, her arms around his neck
as her knees clutched his sides tightly. He even failed to hear her
joyful exclamations as treated him like a carnival ride.
Ken sat down quickly, and with pencil in hand, dove back
into his mid-term, his brain completely focused on the task at hand.
Well, almost completely as he couldn't help noticing that his chair
felt a little strange, oddly bumpy as if it had been replaced by one
with built-in massage. As he fidgeted a bit to make himself more
comfortable, he could hear Kumiko making purring sounds like a
cat. Ken really had to struggle to resist the temptation to find out
what that was about, knowing that so much as a glance could mean
that he'd never complete his mid-term on time.
The rest of the class, watching Ken wriggling in Kumiko's
lap, only shook their heads and hoped that they wouldn't have to
put up with this for the rest of the semester. Dr. Strauss was too
busy grading Kumiko's test to notice.
"There!" Ken shouted, at the same time releasing a huge
relieved breath. He had managed to answer the last question with
one minute to spare. No time to check over his answers, but he
was pretty confident he had done well enough to pass, unless the
instructor held his recent conduct against him.
Ken leant back in his chair, feeling drained from his recent
ordeal, only to find two soft and familiar mounds pressing into his
back. He nearly broke his neck as he whipped his head around to
find himself nose to nose with Kumiko. The demon-girl grinned
and kissed him.
"When did this happen?!" Ken yelled in confusion as he
shot out of his seat and looked down at Kumiko in it, her clothes a
bit rumpled from him sitting on her the whole time.
Kumiko shot out of the chair and hugged Ken tight. "That
was fun! You can be my chair next time!"
Ken wasn't sure what to say to that, so was actually
thankful for Dr. Strauss's sudden interruption. "Class is over, Mr.
Iwakami. Please hand in your test. I can only hope that you did
half as well as Ms. Akuma."
"She did well on the mid-term?" Ken asked in surprise as
he turned around, wondering how a demon from Hell knew
anything about calculus. "Be she spent more time doodling..."
"Ms. Akuma answered each question excellently," Dr.
Strauss stated, sounding faintly impressed as he walked over to
them, "and I found her little drawings to be quite amusing. It
makes me wonder why she simply doesn't test out of this class and
take Calculus II instead."
"But then I wouldn't be in the same class as my Ken-chan,"
Kumiko explained, as she put her arms around Ken's neck and
rubbed his cheek with her own. "We're taking all our classes
together!"
"I see," Dr. Strauss replied. "While I have nothing against
such an obviously healthy relationship, though I do wish you'd
show some restraint while in my class, I do not think you should
squander your potential by reducing yourself to the level of your
mate."
The instructor took Ken's mid-term from his numb fingers,
and with a short bow to Kumiko, which she returned with a grin,
he left.
Once he was out of sight, Ken fainted.
The vice-president and treasurer of the Paranormal Club
were doing their best to console their president after they had
watched the tape that Satoru had brought back of the incident
which they had all witnessed the start of that morning.
"Come on, president, it's not the end of the world,"
Nobukazu Minamisaka, the treasurer and pudgy member of the
club, said absently as his eyes were glued to the images of the
blue-haired goddess as he played the tape over again.
"It's the end of this club!" Eichi shouted while pulling his
hair out. "All our work, all our theories meaningless because of
that _woman_. This is worse than the 'Natsumi Takemori'
incedent!"
"But president, don't you think it's a bit unusual for a
woman to appear out of nowhere and become that attached to
him?" Satoru said, not looking up from the black book, penned in
crimson ink, that he was reading.
Eichi seized that thought like a lifeline to a drowning man.
"Yes, it is unusual, isn't it? One might even say there's almost
something _supernatural_ about her... don't you think?"
"Definitely," Nobu answered, making full use of the vcr's
slow-mo function. "She's got to be... huh?"
His sudden exclamation was enough for even Satoru to
carefully put away his book so he could look closer. Eichi
immediately had his face to the screen, frantically asking, "What?
What is it?"
Nobu fiddled around a bit, rewinding, and then go frame by
frame to find just the right place. He may have imagined it, but his
eyes were normally keen on picking up details like that. Finding
the frame he wanted, he nearly dropped the remote in surprise.
"What is that?"
Eichi blinked several times as he studied the image closely.
"I don't know," he admitted finally.
"I think we've found the answer that we've been searching
for, president," Satoru stated, turning around to dig around in the
small occult library he kept as his offering to the club.
"You mean you know what that is?" Eichi asked in
surprise, pointing at the... thing that was sticking out of the
woman's head. It wasn't an antennae like aliens had, and it
definitely wasn't an optical illusion�
Satoru threw down a heavy book on top of the List, open to
a sketch of a naked woman bathed in blood, though there were
certain features of her that made it clear she wasn't human. Large
bat wings, claws, fangs, and two things poking out of her head that
matched what was currently on the screen.
"What is this?" Eichi asked awed as he examined the book,
but it was in a language that he couldn't read.
"Old monastic text from Europe that my uncle found for
me," Satoru explained. "It's from an order who took it as their
sacred mission to record all demonic practices they could find for
some reason. They call this demon succubi, whose purpose is to
corrupt a pure man completely, and then consume him body and
soul."
"Lucky guy," Nobu said as he noted the timestamp of the
oddity and went on to watch the rest.
"That's it! That explains everything!" Eichi shouted in joy
as righteous tears streamed down his face. "We all knew from the
moment we saw it that there was something beyond the normal
with Ken Iwakami's ability to strike out with any woman. This
succubus must have placed some kind of spell on him, to weaken
him until she could make her move!"
"Sounds about right," Nobu said, his eyes still locked on
the succubus in question. "Now that we've solved the big mystery,
what do we do now?"
"Err..." Eichi struggled to find a good answer for that. The
whole mystery of Ken's supernatural bad luck with women was
what had kept their club going for half a semester now. With that
solved, there was no new mystery to replace it. Still, there had to
be something they could do. "Now that we know about this
succubus, it's our sacred duty as the Paranormal Club to make sure
she doesn�t succeed in her evil plan!"
"And how we going to do that?" Nobu prompted.
Eichi didn't have an answer to that, but much to his relief,
Satoru did. "It says here that if the victim can find pure love with
another before he's completely corrupted and give in fully to that
love, then the victim will be safe from the succubus."
"That's it!" Eichi enthused. "All we have to do now is find
a woman whose love is stronger than the power of the evil
succubus!"
The three went back to the List to plan out their next move,
the antics of Kumiko playing in the background.
