Some Azumanga Daioh short stories by K'thardin

Disclaimer:  Azumanga Daioh is owned by Kiyouhiko Azuma, J.C. 
Staff, Genco, and ADV.  I'm just borrowing them for awhile.

Forward:  Taking a queue from the manga and DB Sommer's excellent 
works, not to mention one strange dream I had, I've concocted a 
set of short stories set in the Azumanga Daioh universe.  Let the 
carnage begin, and may whatever God there is have mercy on us 
all!

-------------
Free XP

	"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the 
rise of the sons of Arius, there was an age undreamed of.  And 
unto this: four warrior women destined to meet a most dismal 
death at the behest of the many forces of Darwin.  It is I alone, 
their humble guide, who can tell thee of their ruinous fate. Let 
me tell you of the final hours of this doomed party of 
adventurers!"
	
	-Chiyo-chan, DM of the AD&D Campaign, The Yukarimore 
Assault(PC Massacre)

	It had only been a couple of days since Chiyo had pulled 
out her AD&D rule book and suggested playing this game with her 
friends, and yet it felt like an eternity.  Those girls, during 
the course of the game, had walked into every obvious trap, 
angered several high ranking monsters, killed innocent NPCs in 
every village they had come across (making them wanted women), 
and generally got themselves in as much trouble as low level 
characters as they possibly could.  It was all she could do as a 
DM to keep them alive from one encounter to the next.  Normally 
she'd just let them die, but Chiyo had no intention of repeating 
what happened last time they rolled up characters.  She couldn't 
help but wonder for the umpteenth time what she was thinking when 
she started this.

	Chiyo-chan stared intently at her adventure card, her hair 
completely undone and frazzled beyond styling; so taxing were the 
players before her.  The pungent aroma of the tea she had just 
made filled her nostrils as she read the scenario; unfortunately 
not calming her, as she'd hoped it would.  Noting where her 
reckless players were heading she thought, "Yup, finally 
someplace placid.  In fact they'd be just about..."

	"You crest the rolling hills to look over the valley of 
tall grass leading to Yukarimore.  The city itself is now visible 
on the horizon, and before you sits an elaborate gazebo."

	"I attack it!" Tomo shouted, waving her pencil around like 
a sword.

	Yomi looked at her in exasperation, "WHY are you 
attacking?"

	"I must destroy it!  Chiyo-chan!" she pointed 
enthusiastically at the girl who had just moved aside the large 
adventure card so she could see if her friend was serious or not, 
"Get those dice out!  I'm going for it!"

	"But...it's a gazebo!" Chiyo-chan protested.

	"And it must die!  Do I have initiative?"  Chiyo-chan 
slowly nodded, not entirely believing Tomo was really doing this.  
"I run up to it and strike it with my sword!"  Tomo rolled her 
dice, "Aw man!  I rolled a one."

	"A one?  Cool!" Chiyo pulled dug under her chair and pulled 
out a thin manual.  "That means I can try out this new set of 
Critical Mass rules I picked up."

	"Critical Mass?" Osaka asked.

	Yomi nodded, "Don't worry about it.  Just be thankful she's 
far away from us."  Osaka nodded, having no clue what Yomi meant.  
A sound of dice rolling from Chiyo's side of the table drew their 
attention back to the game in progress.

	Chiyo checked the rulebook, and compared it to the dice 
roll to determine the most logical outcome.  "Well, you're lucky 
Tomo," she stated after a moment.  "Here's what happens:  You run 
up to the gazebo and attempt to attack it.  Your sword bounces 
off one of the sidings and out of your hand.  It flies up into 
the air and cuts one of the top tier supports, bringing most of 
its top down on you, and trapping your legs for 10 points of 
damage."  Chiyo-chan pursed her lips in disappointment.  She 
wanted a better roll so she could have come up with something 
even more spectacular.  Still...at this rate, if Tomo kept doing 
things like this, it was a fair bet she'd get more practice at 
the critical mass rules.  Assuming they all didn't die a painful 
screaming death.  Which honestly, Chiyo conceded, was the most 
likely outcome if her friends kept playing like this.

	"Argh!  I'm trapped!  Sakaki!  I need your druid strength 
to come pull me out of this!"

	Sakaki looked at Tomo for a moment, and then slowly shook 
her head in a slow wide arc back and forth in an emphatic 
refusal.

	"Will no one come to save me?!" Everyone looked at 
everything but Tomo.  Except for Osaka who seemed to be engrossed 
in looking at something on her character sheet.  "C'mon Yomi, 
we've been friends since forever!  You can at least heal me with 
a clerical spell!  You gotta help me out of this!  No telling 
what this thing is going to do when it recovers!"

	Yomi took a drink of her tea and smirked, "You made it; you 
lay in it."

	"Yomi..."

	"Can I cast any of these?" Osaka suddenly asked Chiyo, 
cutting off Tomo's whining in progress.

	"Yes.  Any of them up through the third level ones."

	Tomo suddenly got very nervous.

	"Hmm," Osaka nodded thoughtfully.  "I wanna cast this one 
on the Gazebo."  She pointed on her sheet, showing Chiyo.

	Chiyo-chan shrugged. "Alright.  Roll for it."

	Osaka did as she was bid.  "Is this good?"

	Chiyo-chan goggled and Yomi choked on a swallow of her tea.  
"20 critical..."  Chiyo then rolled her dice, and looked at Yomi 
incredulously.
	 
	One of Yomi's eyebrows shot up.

	Chiyo-chan turned to Sakaki.

	Sakaki simply stared back.

	Chiyo-chan's face took on a pained expression of complete 
and utter disbelief, while Osaka waited happily and patiently for 
the results.

	Sakaki took a sip of her tea, nodding imperceptibly in 
sympathy.  If Chiyo hadn't known Sakaki for as long as she did, 
she'd have missed it completely.

	"And the Gazebo...explodes in flames.  Moreover, it looks 
like the blast knocked Tomo a safe distance away only causing her 
minor cuts and bruises."  Chiyo felt a great need to beat her 
head against a wall.  They were doing it again!  This entire 
situation was completely unbelievable and ludicrous!  Much as she 
loved her friends, they could be trying at times.

	"WOOHOO!  I wasted that Gazebo!  All that XP is ours!"  
Tomo shouted in triumph grabbing Osaka's hand in her own and 
pumping it in the air.  "Eat it!  You didn't want to help and now 
it's all for me...well...and a little for Osaka here...I guess."

	Case in point.

	"It was her fireball that torched the thing." Yomi noted.

	"Details," Tomo waved off, "Besides I was the one that 
charged it with my sword, hacking it all to pieces!  Sure it 
bounced...what are you doing Osaka?"

	Osaka glanced up from holding her hands out over the table.  
"Oh, I was just warming myself.  I knew I must be cold wearing so 
little, being a sorceress and all.  It was so nice of you to chop 
all that wood for me.  Now we can all get warm and roast s'mores 
and..."

	'Wood?' Tomo mouthed as Osaka rambled on.

	Yomi sighed.  "Tomo...a gazebo is like a small open 
building."

	"But...but..."

	"And that's no experience for Tomo and one hundred 
experience for Sakaki and Yomi for not going along with it, and 
two hundred experience for Osaka for the fire and s'mores." Chiyo 
pronounced happily, her earlier frustration forgotten.  She wrote 
the appropriate figures down on the sheet of paper on the table 
next to her.

	Tomo's mouth hung open, aghast.

	"S'mores are good." Sakaki said softly, taking another sip 
from her tea. 

	Osaka laid her head down on the table.  "Yeah," she agreed 
as her eyes took on a glazed sheen seeing herself in a black 
bikini outfit with a cute little steel Chiyo face holding the top 
portion together above her breasts, roasting marshmallows. All 
the while, dozens of Chiyo-chan Country residents, being led by 
Chiyo-chan's father, danced a happy-happy dance around her and 
the fire.

----------------

The Observed

	Yomi looked about her at the trees whose leaves were the 
deep green color associated with spring.  The day was a nice one, 
certainly.  The sun shown brightly down through the few white 
fluffy clouds in the sky, the breeze was a nice and cool one; 
smelling of that tang that hinted at a possible light rain later.  
The birds were even singing sweet melodies...definitely too nice 
a day to eat lunch inside the school.

	Therefore, feeling the need to go out and enjoy it, she had 
walked outside and found Sakaki had settled herself under one of 
the trees to do the same...though she seemed more interested in 
the adorable play of the squirrels presently flitting to and fro 
about her.

	Everything was nice and well...nice.  Probably why she 
found herself sighing in somewhat of a melancholy.  It was so 
nice and yet...she was missing something.  Something that would 
make it complete.

	Finally she broke the silence, "You ever notice there's a 
distinct lack of guys that ask us out?"

	Sakaki looked down from her contemplation of the local 
wildlife in the tree shading them.  One of the squirrels had 
stolen a nut from one of the others and had been engaged in a 
merry game of tag.  It was so cute the way he jumped from branch 
to branch trying to keep away from the murderous intent of the 
one he had purloined it from.  "I don't let it bother me."	

	"It bothers me."  Yomi said.  She sighed and opened her 
bento...for some reason she wasn't feeling too hungry anymore.  
Taking a bite, Yomi noticed Sakaki had shifted her focus to her, 
and was staring intently.  "I guess..." she continued, "I 
mean...all kidding and Tomo-isms aside, we're pretty damn hot.  
Probably the hottest girls in school.  I'd even go so far as to 
say you're even better looking than me."

	"Depends on who you ask."  Sakaki said taking a bite of a 
vaguely chicken-looking substance from her bento.  She 
grimaced...it had too much spice in the sauce, and it burned her 
tongue.

	"Still, I mean...guys don't go for you cause you're taller 
than most of them!  How shallow is that?!  And then there's me!  
Guys don't go for me cause Tomo scares them off!  It's not my 
fault she hounds my every step; chasing every cute guy that comes 
within breathing distance of me off by shear force of 
obnoxiousness!  How come I have to be saddled with the moron!?"  
Yomi stood abruptly, shouting at the heavens that were completely 
oblivious to a beautiful girl's suffering,  "When, lord, when!?  
When's it going to be my time?!"

	"Nyamo-sensei probably asks the same thing," Sakaki noted 
to herself.

	"So, what's a girl to do?"  Sakaki sat down shrugged.  "I 
suppose I could just throw myself at the next guy I see."  The 
bushes behind a tree next to the two girls rustled, startling 
them momentarily before a small rabbit jumped out.

	"Kawaii," the two girls intoned together.  Sakaki blushed 
slightly and took a baby carrot from her bento and tried to coax 
the tiny brown bunny to her.  It looked at her quizzically, and 
even went so far as to come close enough to sniff at the 
proffered morsel, before its shy nature caused it to flee from 
the two girls.

	At the corners of Sakaki's eyes, small tears formed.

	"Oh well.  That sucks."

	Sakaki nodded in agreement with the barest motion of her 
head.

	"See, a boyfriend would be so useful right about now!  He 
could hug you and kiss you and tell you it was alright."

	Sakaki thought about that one for a moment.  The only 
imagery of the boys in her class that she had to draw from were 
from the very same boys who were smaller, not nearly as strong as 
she was, and were consequently intimidated by her.  Oddly though, 
a few of the nicer ones managed to ingratiate themselves into her 
daydream, and as strange as some would probably think it was, the 
idea of being held by one of them, no matter they were smaller 
and probably weaker, was somewhat...comforting.

	"That would be nice," she concluded.

	"Well, I suppose if all else fails, we could go lesbian." 
Yomi deadpanned.  "Did you hear something?" she asked as she 
heard the sound of something large hitting solid ground.  Sakaki 
shook her head.  "Could have sworn I heard..." she shrugged, 
"Must be hearing things."

	Sakaki ate some of the rice out her bento, "It is an 
option," she said suddenly.

	Yomi glanced at her friend who was looking intently at her. 
"What is an..." she asked when her gaze connected with Sakaki's, 
and Yomi jumped as if a cattle prod had just been applied to her 
rear.  Yomi carefully studied her tall friend, who continued 
staring back at Yomi, the ever-present indeterminate expression 
on her face.  "I wish you wouldn't do that.  I never can tell 
when you're joking or not."

	Sakaki took another bite of food out of her bento.

---------

The Observer

	It was a damn fine day, and Eishi Aizawa was going to enjoy 
it the best way he knew how:  getting some shuteye during lunch 
in the small glade of trees behind the school.  It was the 
perfect spot too, since the teachers never came out there. It was 
also widely regarded as the designated 'neutral zone' for 
students, so there was little chance of anyone interrupting 
anyone else if they did decide to do something like, oh...smoke 
some ganja, eat their lunch, or even take a nap.

	"You ever notice there's a distinct lack of guys that ask 
us out?"

	His eyes shot open, "Hmm..." he mused silently, "that 
sounds like upperclassman, Yomi."  He knew her real name, of 
course:  Koyomi Mizuhara.  However, like most everyone else, he 
referred to her by the nickname she'd had since before he'd known 
of her.  From what he'd seen of her, she was a beautiful girl.  
Her friend, if he could call her that, Tomo often tended to state 
quite loudly that there was a large amount of fat on the girl's 
body.  After seeing her in a swimsuit once, he was convinced that 
was a lie. If she had any, it would probably make her soft and 
pliable to the touch.  She would be perfect for squeezing, and 
probably even squeaks when one does it.  He amused himself with 
fantasies of hugging and squeezing the girl before he heard 
another voice.

	"I don't let it bother me."

	"And that would be the soft-spoken Sakaki."  Since her 
voice was rarely heard it was lucky he was even able to recognize 
it.  He wondered if she wasn't more outspoken because most 
students, guys more than the girls, tended to avoid her.  She was 
taller and stronger than most of the guys, which tended to scare 
those lesser chumps.  It didn't really bug him, but then his 
mother was the same way concerning his father.  He had been given 
a whole lifetime to get used to the idea, despite the stereotypes 
surrounding him.  Like Yomi, she was very pretty...also extremely 
athletic.  They tended to hang out together, but he'd rarely got 
a chance to do anything more than a cursory inspection of either, 
being one grade below them.  He amused himself with thoughts of 
what he could do with a girl of that kind of energy for a moment.  
He sat up and tried to get into a position to hear the girls 
better; his original plan for a short trip to the land of the 
comatose was discarded.

	He listened to their next exchange and tried to decide the 
answer to their rather obvious, if danced around, question.  When 
his memory failed to provide him the details he required, he 
scooted out a bit from behind the tree to take a look at the two 
for comparison.

	His brain fused.  Before him were the two most beautiful 
girls he'd ever seen, and it was as if they'd just asked HIM to 
pick who was the better looking between them.

	"Gah..." He just couldn't take it!  There was no way his 
unworthy intellect could possibly make that determination.  It'd 
take the judgment of a god or something even greater...no mortal 
could possibly be called to accounting of such a question.  
Quickly he ducked back behind the tree, and considered what he 
knew.

	They were single.  They were hot.  Oh sure, Sakaki could 
probably break him like a twig and Yomi had that damn annoying 
friend of hers...that she was now complaining about, but that was 
petty compared to the first two things he had just discovered.  
What's more, they almost sounded desperate...perhaps one of them 
would be desperate enough to go out with a younger guy, 
especially with Yomi's diatribe toward the heavens.

	"Your time is now," he thought to himself. "Just as soon as 
I figure out which one of you to ask."  He hesitated in that.  
Each was beautiful and each had traits that attracted him.  But 
what if he asked the one that he wasn't compatible with and the 
other didn't want him because he broke the first's heart or 
something?  What if he asked one out, only to be turned down, and 
the other didn't want anything to do with him cause her friend 
thought he was a putz?  What if...

	"I suppose I could just throw myself at the next guy I 
see."

	He walked around the tree, toward Yomi.  Too bad he didn't 
see the bushes in his way, and fell face first into them.

	"Ah crap!" he thought, "They'll know now I've been 
eavesdropping and hit me and hate me for it and I'll never have a 
chance with them or any other girl in school and..."

	A lyrical cry of "Kawaii!" from the two girls interrupted 
his thoughts.

	"Eh?"  Slowly pushing himself away from the bush he fell 
into, he saw what had their attention riveted.  An adorable brown 
rabbit had jumped from where he had fallen and had captivated 
them.  If he knew which god or goddess to thank, he'd have kissed 
them at this very moment.

	Then the lapin, after getting so close as to nearly take 
the orange tuber it was being offered, panicked and ran the other 
way, leaving poor Sakaki in tears.  Yomi then said something to 
the effect of how it would be nice to be held by a boyfriend, to 
which he could hear Sakaki's soft agreement.  His heart went out 
to the wounded girl, and it was by force of will alone that he 
didn't rush toward her right then and gather her in his arms.  He 
lost it once when Yomi talked about throwing herself at him, and 
he'd not lose it again.  It wasn't time yet for that, however, 
there would be ample opportunity later for holding and comforting 
the girl.

	This would happen just as soon as he figured out WHICH girl 
to ask out.  Okay...he needed to do that first.  And it sounded 
like it'd be a great time to do the asking after lunch.  Just so 
it didn't seem like he was stalking or eavesdropping or anything 
like that, and all the bad things that he was thinking of that 
could happen, wouldn't.  But still...which one?  WHICH?!

	"Eh, screw it," he resigned softly.  He pulled a yen piece 
out of his pants pocket.  Head's Sakaki, tails Yomi.  He tossed 
it in the air.

	"Well, I suppose if all else fails, we could go lesbian."

	He hit the ground with the mother of all nosebleeds.

	"Did you hear something?"

	"Yomi...Sakaki...lesbians..." he gurgled out.  How would he 
EVER get that image out of his head long enough to ask either 
out?  "And if they were bisexual then they might even 
let...they'd...Oh my GOD!" He managed a soft, "Erk..." before his 
brain overloaded completely and his eyes rolled into the back of 
his head.

--------

Afterwards:  Oh...I think he's dead, Jim. ^_^ And to think, I 
still have two more of these short stories to write.  It was a 
really odd dream (maybe I shouldn't watch the "Knights of the 
Dinner Table" flash toons before I go to bed ^_^). I would like 
to thank Justin Carr and LarryF for their excellent proofreading, 
and Benjamin Oliver for convincing me to expand a bit on the 
first story.  If you have comments, concerns, or even a burning 
flame, don't be shy, just send it on over to 
kthardin@tenchifanart.com

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