[X] Use diplomacy. You've got better things to do with your time, and surely they can think of other things they can do that won't involve them getting suspended or expelled?
[X] See about socializing with your classmates - especially Miss Nakadai Kaho.
[X] Scout the area. You have maps of the area, of course, but it's always better to have personal knowledge of the locale. (Max 1)
[X] Try to figure out what's up with the local forces of darkness. Your dossiers on them are woefully incomplete.
You smile wryly at them, which seems to unnerve them somewhat. They're clearly not expecting someone of your caliber. They probably thought you would either comply or start a fight, and they seem to think they have a numerical advantage. Which is true, but insufficient. But, as they say, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. And you are not incompetent.
"Gentlemen," You interrupt. "I want you to think about this for a moment. The price of a school lunch here is roughly 400 yen. The school lunches are also tasteless, flavorless, and have the delightful texture of an ornery cat. Why, then, you would risk suspension or expulsion as a punishment to get one? Moreover, most people, including myself, pay for school lunch online, over the internet, so we don't actually use physical money that you could take. And you couldn't take me in a fight anyway, so I have no reason to fear you enough to give you my money in any case."
"Besides," you note as two more students whose names you don't care to recall enter the room, "I"m quite certain both of those lovely ladies over there would be more than willing to attest that you three started the fight. After all, no one is going to believe that the cute new transfer student willingly picked a fight with three unsavory bullies, are they?"
"On the other hand, if you three are willing to go away and pretend this never happened, I'll do the same, and we can go back to loathing our school lunches in peace. How about it, gentlemen?"
They exchange glances. The biggest one, the first to speak, makes some vaguely threatening noises before all three of them turn away and stomp out of the room. You smile proudly. Your immense charisma has saved the day without resorting to such pedantic solutions as violence once more. Truly, you are the greatest. Now, you just need to find a solution to your lunch problem.
That solution comes from the most unexpected of places. You take it upon yourself to..acquaint yourself with your classmates, seeing as one of them has already proved herself so interesting. The advice you get is simple: Don't buy lunch at the cafeteria. Buy lunch from the student-run Associated Store. It's cheaper, it's healthier, and most importantly, it actually tastes like food.
See? Your classmates are proving useful already! You smile warmly at the group surrounding you. This conversation continues to be a proverbial goldmine! You'll never have to deal with those terrible school lunches again!
Absently, you turn the topic to other things you ought to know as a newcomer to the school. For the most part, the advice you receive is rather mundane. Which teachers are strict or lenient, which classes you actually need to study for, which uniform modifications are or are not permissible, that sort of thing. Some pieces of advice, however, are not.
Apparently, there are factions in this school. Three of them, to be precise. There are three 'Kings' who collectively rule the school, and all of the students are expected either to join a faction or remain completely uninvolved. The three factions are known as the Arbiters, the Suits, and the Delinquents, and apparently, they are a taboo subject. That, or your classmates have all spontaneously and simultaneously developed an impressive sense of paranoia. You smile and switch topics, which they apparently find very comforting, from the way they relax.
Throughout these conversations, you occasionally bring up Kaho. The responses you get are simultaneously surprising, and yet not. Apparently, she's an unfriendly, antisocial girl with impressive anger issues, who had a reputation for getting into fights when she was younger, often because she was too proud for her own good. Then something changed when she got into middle school, and she started doing her very best to conform to Japan's cultural norms. Her success was debatable, considering that she attended no clubs, avoided school events, didn't have friends, and spoke exactly as much as was necessary and no more. No one even knew where she ate lunch. If you want to get closer to her, you have your work cut out for you.
Thoughts of your inconvenient classmate fill your head as you scout through the ward. It's a large place, to be sure, but the least you can do is familiarize yourself with it. You need to know the area you'll be operating in, after all. You may be confined to the district at the moment, but you have every intention of expanding significantly, as soon as you have a stable powerbase. First the district, then the prefecture, then the city, the country, and THE WORLD! and then the universe, of course.
Of course, securing the area you're currently operating out of comes first. You sigh, and continue noting down possible locations for dramatic confrontations or important meetings, as well as appropriate escape routes from those locations. It's always important to be prepared, whether you enjoy the preparation or not. After all, the preparation always pays off in the end, and the reactions being properly prepared can get are amazing. It's simply another reason why you-
You freeze.
You feel something nearby. Something...Sinful. Except, you're on top of a hotel, one fairly well-known in the area. And the Sin is potent and concentrated. This...could be a problem. Quietly, you note the location down on your mental map and move on. You honestly don't know if you could take whatever has generated this Sinful presence in a fair fight, and you're opposed to fair fights on principle anyway.
Things only escalate from there. Now that you know there's something to look for, you notice that the entire area is coated in a very light, very gentle coating of Sin. To coat an entire area, without tainting or marking it, speaks of both immense skill and incredible power. This isn't just beyond you, it's probably beyond your master and any two of her colleagues as well. You...may have a problem here.
Your suspicions are confirmed about half an hour later, when you see the Princesses run into a Youma of some kind. You don't know what Domain it's from, which doesn't mean much. There are literally hundreds of thousands of domains, after all. No, what you find concerning is its opposition. It's a possession-type, which means that it hijacks the body of another being to affect the world. Par for the course, really.
For the Princesses, however, this is apparently an entirely new phenomenon. They spend half the fight dodging it's sonic and energy blasts (barely), and arguing over how to stop it without hurting its host. From their dialogue, ignoring all the proclamations of Justice and Righteousness, you glean four very important facts. First, this is not the kind of Youma they've been fighting. They have apparently been fighting something that instead manifests itself directly into the world - which means that either the Youma is immensely powerful, or it has an extremely powerful summoner. Second, there is some kind of conflict between Princess Fire and Princess Earth, as both of them try to give orders simultaneously, and spend thirty seconds in a shouting match before Princess Heart intervenes and overrides them both. Third, they have some kind of contact with the Choir, as Princess Water mentions contacting Alto to see if she has any information on this new type of enemy. Fourth, Princess Wood at the very least goes to your school, as she makes an offhanded comment after the fight about how her science teacher wants the entire class to memorize the periodic table - which your teacher also wants.
You ponder this idea as you lean down to inspect the man the Princesses have so helpfully left lying in the street after eliminating the Youma with some kind of purging attack. It seems like every Magical Girl has one of those now, when they used to be so rare as to be almost unheard of before. You sigh, and keep examining the man. Unfortunately, Princess Heart's Beam-of-Fuck-You (you didn't hear what she called it over the blasting of the Youma) has eliminated most of the clues you might have used to figure anything out. You do find one interesting tidbit. The man is humming, and the tune seems to almost resonate with something deep inside you. Just hearing the tune makes you feel sorrowful.
Then the police show up, and you have to do quite a bit of fast talking to excuse yourself. You manage to pass yourself off as a concerned citizen out for a walk, when he saw the Princesses fighting and hurried over when they left to try to help the man. The police officers on the scene applaud your heroism, and tell you not to do it again. You assure them that you have no intention of doing any such thing, and head home quickly. You've discovered quite a lot this night, and it seems you have a lot to think over.
Your sleep this night is troubled. You toss and turn for an interminably long time before sleep claims you, and even then, your dreams are troubled and strange. What do you dream?
[] Once, there was a maiden...who struck an iron wall until it shattered her hand
[] Quoth the Raven, Forevermore
[] Seven Seals, Seven Rings, Seven Brides for the Scarlet King
[] My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings
QM: And I thought the last update was hard to write. In case it's not clear, the vote at the end is for an interlude, where you dream a dream that isn't yours. Also, there are forces of darkness! And there's still rather a lot you don't know about them. You voted for all the heroes, so you get all the antagonists too.
