Konowars Episode 22, The Dark Side Has Its Work Cut Out (Patreon)

Beta’d and Edited by The Grand Cogitator and Dr_Feelgood

Commissioned by Magus1108

“Why do I have to carry you through the swamp!?” Kazuma complained as he batted a slimy bit of vine out of his face. “No one else has to carry you!”

“B-but I have to carry Megumin,” Yunyun pointed out, Megumin drooling slightly on her shoulder as she snored.

Yoda’s staff bonked Kazuma in the back of the head, causing the young man to cry out, mostly in irritation. “If whining you are, finished my training is. A babysitter I am not.”

The group was currently running along what amounted to a series of low hills in the fetid swamp, an old formation of limestone that stuck up out of the waters below a few meters. Various creepy crawlies moved through the bushes, away from the burning rubble of several trees and the burnt meat smell of the very dead monsters that had thought ambushing the most trigger happy member of the Crimson Demon Clan had been a good idea.

If nothing else, Megumin’s presence on the planet was accelerating the evolution of the fauna, as anything stupid enough to attack her was on the fast track to extinction.

“Why are you berating me?! I’m not the one who called down a Force Storm that could have killed all of us!” Kazuma prototested.

“Hmph,” Yoda said, and kicked Kazuma in the side. “Running you should be. Talking, needed is not. An empty mind, seek you should. Give you this, running will.”

“C-come on, Kazuma! We’re going to be Jedi!” Yunyun said excitedly, and raced off along the mossy stones, Megumin snoring on her back.

Grumbling, Kazuma went along with the plan, if for no other reason than that Yunyun was also carrying their lunch, and he was getting hungry. Why couldn’t he give Megumin the piggyback instead of the wrinkly old gremlin?!

They scrambled along the path, occasionally swinging on vines and crawling along trees.

“Are these things structurally sound!? What if we fall!? There’s no way this is OSHA compliant! I should file a suit for how unsafe your training methods are!” Kazuma whined as he scurried up the admittedly rather slick and hazardous vines.

“But Kazuma, you get to have fun with your girlfriend, and two other friends. Isn’t this what you always wanted?” Yunyun asked, grinning down at him, her eyes glowing slightly in the murky light.

“Yoda’s not a friend,” Kazuma mumbled, though he didn’t sound convincing.

That earned him another kick in the ribs. “A friend I am not! Your teacher I am. Listen to me, you should. Hmph. No more training today you will do.”

“Friggen’ finally,” Kazuma grumbled, taking off his harness as Yoda hopped off, resting on a mossy log nearby.

“Oh…I had hoped we could train with Lightsabers today?” Yunyun asked hopefully as she gently set the still drowsy Megumin down. She got out the lunches she’d prepared earlier, giving one first to Megumin, who woke up at the realization that grub was on.

“Training in violence, need you do not. Control, restraint, peace, these are what you lack,” Yoda said, accepting

“Hmph. Violence isn’t the answer,” Megumin muttered as she dug into the meal, which was a mixture of local plants and fruit, as well as some fried fishy things.

It wasn’t bad really, and Kazuma even managed to remember to both say “thank you” and to tell Yunyun it was pretty good, earning him a beaming smile from the blushing cook.

Upon hearing Megumin’s words, Yoda perked up. “Yes, yes, learned something finally, you have!”

“Just let her finish the saying,” Kazuma sighed.

“Violence is the question!” Megumin decreed, raising her carved wooden fork skywards. “The answer is ‘yes’!”

Yoda sighed and buried his head in his hands, while Yunyun gave him an apologetic look. “Um, it’s an old Crimson Demon saying…”

“Surprised, I am not. Heard that from the elder Skywalker once I did,” Yoda muttered.

“Don’t tell me my dad married a Crimson Demon!” Kazuma groaned, shaking his head.

Hearing that made both Yunyun and the still sleepy Megumin bristle. “W-what would be so bad about that?!”

“Yeah, are you just going to ditch Yunyun?!” Megumin demanded.

“What? No! I just mean…ugh. Look, do you even know who my mom was?” Kazuma asked Yoda pleadingly.

“Yes,” Yoda said quietly. “Both your parents knew I did. Tragic was her death. Betrayed by the Dark Side, they both were.”

“Vader or something, right?” Kazuma asked, frowning.

Yoda nodded, his eyes glazing over as the old Jedi called up memories of the past. “Led to the death of your mother, Vader did. Destroyed your father as well, Vader’s actions. Only to pain and suffering, the Dark Side leads to.”

“And also Explosions,” Megumin sighed, though she sounded rather happy about it.

“M-Megumin! T-this is really sad for Kazuma! His parents-”

“Blast them, they never did anything for me. Ditched me in a sand trap and got themselves killed,” Kazuma grumbled, his cheeks turning red as he looked down into his food.

Yoda eyed him, tapping his stick thoughtfully, while Megumin shrugged. “It gives you a properly dramatic backstory.”

“Yeah, sure, backstory, that’s all they were,” Kazuma mumbled, prodding his food.

Yunyun scooted over, until she was sitting right next to Kazuma. She put her arms around him, despite his half hearted attempt to move away from her. “Shhh, it’s OK. I-I know that even as weird as my dad is…I still miss my mom a lot…but I least I remember her, a little. You never got to meet your parents…”

For a moment, it seemed like Kazuma would fend Yunyun off with a snarky comment, until he started crying and Yunyun put his head on her lap so she could stroke his hair.

“I-I always used to pretend my parents were off on a mission to save the galaxy, that they’d come home, or that they died saving the galaxy from a sith lord!” Kazuma blubbered.

“On the bright side, it sounds like maybe they did,” Megumin offered. Yunyun shot her an irritated look.

Yoda watched the exchange, looking thoughtful at how Yunyun sought to comfort Kazuma. Perhaps the Jedi should have re-thought their philosophy of no attachment. For some, yes, that was the best path, as it truly was the ideal to have no attachments to the physical world, and to be guided purely by the Force. For others, however, perhaps it could be the anchor to prevent another Vader.

“M-maybe we should move, it’s cold here,” Yunyun said, suddenly shivering.

“No, I like it here. The pillow is nice,” Kazuma sighed, nuzzling Yunyun’s legs and making her blush.

“I too detect a fell wind here, with the whiff of destruction and danger!” Megumin agreed, staggering to her feet.

“The Dark Side, it is. It’s temptation, you feel,” Yoda said, stirring now that the final part of his lesson had been discovered. “Listen: and learn. Easier, some say the Dark Side is.”

“I’m up for easier,” Kazuma’s muffled voice said, face down between Yunyun’s thighs as he was.

“K-Kazuma! Sit up, we have to p-pay attention,” Yunyun said, but she made no effort to actually force him to move, much to Megumin’s obvious indignation.

“Sit up, Kazutrash!” Megumin snapped, and threw a rock that bounced off the back of his head. Fortunately, that was the thickest and toughest part of Kazuma’s body.

“Ow!” Kazuma did sit up, rubbing the back of his head and glaring at Megumin, while Yunyun looked rather disappointed.

“A trap, the Dark Side is. Easy at first, yes. Easy at first, falling is. Sudden stop at the end, easy is not,” Yoda said, glaring at his obstinate pupils.

“Yeah, yeah, the Dark Side leads to destruction, blah blah blah,” Kazuma said, rolling his eyes.

“No!” Yoda barked, slamming his cane down. “Destruction, the Dark Side IS. Good, nothing about the Dark Side is. Only negative. Fear. Hatred. Pain. All the Dark Side has to offer. Easy at first, these things are. But poison they will be! Harder in the end, the Darkside is. Bring you to a hard end, the Dark Side shall.”

“So what you’re saying is that the Dark Side is much darker and mysterious, and it has far greater destructive potential!?” Megumin asked eagerly, a manic grin sprouting on her face.

“The reason that is, that no training the Crimson Demons received,” Yoda snapped, pointing his cane at Megumin. She slumped over, and started snoring again. Yoda snorted in disgust and lowered his cane. “Flashy, the Light Side may not be. But effective and gentle, it is.”

“Her mom used to do the same thing when she wouldn’t go to bed,” Kazuma said with a smirk.

“Perhaps for annoying padawans, I should do the same,” Yoda said, nonplussed.

Yunyun had stood, and had gone over to investigate the darkened cave the evil aura was eliminated from. “Master…this place feels evil. Why haven’t you exorcized it?”

“Probably to train apprentices too dumb to NOT go into the unspeakable den of evils,” Kazuma said, taking a bite of his lunch. “Hard pass.”

Yoda blinked, then pursed his lips and frowned at Kazuma. Could it be…? No, it was impossible.

No one was so lazy that they were immune to the call of the Dark Side. Right?

To Yoda’s surprise, Yunyun turned away and sat back down. He leaned on his stick, musing on that as the two chatted and argued while they ate. He’d assumed his over eager apprentices would charge right into danger with no thought. He was just considering ordering them in, when Yunyun suddenly looked up.

“Where’s Megumin?”

Kazuma swore and threw down his lunch, standing and grabbing his blaster. “There’s a horrible cave of madness and murder right there. Where do you THINK she is?”

“N-no! Megumin!” Yunyun gasped, holding out her hand. Her lightsaber flew out of her bag, and into her palm.

“Your weapons you will not need,” Yoda said calmly. He felt slightly taken aback, as even he hadn’t sensed Megumin sneaking off into the cave.

“Yeah, no, not when Megumin might be in danger,” Kazuma said, dramatically cocking his blaster despite the fact that he didn’t need to and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt he was a Crimson Demon at heart. “Come on, Yunyun! Let’s go get her before she blows herself up.”

Yunyun ignited her lightsaber, and together the two of them charged into darkness.

The flickering glow of the lightsaber gave Kazuma just enough illumination to see by, but he still stumbled through the dim light of the interior after Yunyun. Kazuma felt something cold and clammy, and shivered slightly. “Megumin! Megumin, where’d you run off to?!”

Kazuma looked around, muttering under his breath about idiot maniacs and their lack of self preservation. When he turned around again though, Yunyun was gone, vanished into the mists that had risen up around him.

“Bantha poodoo. This is the part in the vid dramas where the slasher jumps out and picks us off, one by one,” Kazuma muttered, raising his blaster. He pointed it at an especially creepy looking corner, and pulled the trigger.

There was a brief flash and then a small explosion, and Kazuma grinned smugly, blowing the steam off the top of his blaster. “And that’s why I was voted most likely to survive a horror vid.”

KOOOOH…pffff. KOOOOH…pfff.

Kazuma sighed at the ominous breathing sound behind him. “Look, I know if I turn around, Darth Vader will be there or something. Which is patently ridiculous. There’s no way an asthmatic cyborg who’s basically the Emperor’s right hand man would fly all the way across the galaxy to lurk in some dank cave just to sneak up behind me. This is obviously a prank.”

KOOOOH…pffff. KOOOOH…pfff.

Kazuma folded his arms over his chest, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Nope. I refuse to believe it. MEGUMIN! YUNYUN! Where are you?!”

There was the sound of a lightsaber igniting, and with a yip Kazuma dove forward as the hiss of a swinging lightsaber cut the air right where he had been. He rolled on the mossy ground, and came up firing.

The ominous specter behind him deflected the bolts easily, then raised its saber menacingly, the dark cloaked figure of Vader visible in the red glow of his saber.

“Ok, you fooled me, but honestly, you’ve got to try better. This isn’t even close to my greatest fear,” Kazuma said, and plugged Vader in the head. The thing toppled over silently, the blasted helmet rolling to Kazuma’s feet.

“See? If killing him was THAT easy, we’d be done with this stupid war and I could relax already.” Kazuma glanced down to see his own face peering up at him from the fallen mask. He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? That’s the best you got? ‘Oh no, you’ll turn into that which you fight!’”

The ominous silence of the cave was all that answered him.

“Yeah!? Well, if I DID turn into Vader, that would be super! He’s rich, you know! Probably could stay home and build models as much as he wanted!” Kazuma ranted.

Somewhere, daddy dearest was carefully reading the instructions to a LEGO set, I mean, an interlocking brick system, while Komekko eagerly put together a model of a sandcrawler with him.

Turns out, even a NEET is right once in a while.

Kazuma scoffed, and kicked the helmet as hard as he could off into the shadows. He let out a yowl, clutching his boot and hopping around, having stubbed his toe. “OW OW OW! DAMMIT, THAT HURT!”

In a fury, Kazuma grabbed his blaster and started shooting randomly into the Darkness. “Come on, you stupid cave! Is that the best you’ve got!? That wasn’t even MILDLY disturbing!”

There was a shriek, and Kazuma paused. The mist rolled away, to reveal Darkness, laying on the ground, her white robes stained with red.

“Y-you shot me…Kazuma…Kazuma I thought I could trust you,” Darkness pleaded, a trembling hand reaching out towards him.

Kazuma folded his arms over his chest and sneered. “The real Darkness would be fine, and also begging for more.”

The prone figure paused. “What? Kazuma, y-you’ve killed me…your reckless violence-”

“Nope. Not buying it. Try reading my mind again, bozo. What would the real Darkness do?”

Again, Darkness paused, then a look of horror and disgust passed over her face, then a “Harder, daddy,” slipped out.

Horrified, Faux-Darkness clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Yeah, that’s more like it,” Kazuma laughed. He looked around, frowning. “Hey, where are the girls anyway?”

“Uh, K-Kazuma, shooting me has made me oh so horny,” Darkness sighed, sitting up as the bloodstain vanished. “Won’t you give into your carnal lusts, and ravish me?”

“Nice try, but Yunyun is nearby. I ain’t stupid enough to fall for that again! Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, I shoot you!” Kazuma tried shooting Darkness, but this time the blaster did what it should have done to her, which is to say, absolutely nothing.

“What is WRONG with you people?” Darkness huffed. Her form vanished, replaced by that of a wrinkly old man with white hair and a long white beard, the stereotypical evil fu-manchu type that certainly would have been acceptable back in the 70s but would definitely get you canceled now.

“No no, go back to hot girl. If you’re going to tempt me, at least do it with boobs. What do you even have to offer?” Kazuma demanded.

The dark figure slowly floated up into the air, revealing that it lacked any legs, instead the lower half being made of coalesced shadows. “I can offer you great power, young jedi. Forsake the path of the light, and-”

“Nope. Not a Jedi. Have you seen Yunyun?” Kazuma cupped his breasts, grabbing his tunic and bunching it up to emphasize his point. “Power doesn’t interest me, but those tits? That’s a girl worth fighting for!”

The dark spirit gave Kazuma a disgusted look. “Padawan’s these days. Look, I have ancient holocrons, artifacts of great power, and-”

“Really? How valuable is it in today's market? Because those imperial bantha behinds blew up my entire model collection, and replacing it ain’t gonna be cheap, let me tell you. Why, my limited edition Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship 1/3000 scale model ALONE was 10,000 credits! And that was on sale when you could still get it at MSRP. These days, you’d be lucky to get it for 50,000! It was like I was always telling my uncle, those things are an INVESTMENT, not just toys!”

The Dark Side spirit sighed. “They would give you great wealth.”

“Nah, forget it. Yoda would chuck it in the swamp, and I’ve seen enough holodramas to know that if I take a cursed relic it will just end badly. Still, I suppose I could case the place and see if you’ve got anything worth swiping,” Kazuma mused.

Throwing its hands up in the air, the dark spirit cried, “Forget it! You’re already more corrupt than anything I could do to you! A specter waits around for 20 years, and this is what happens?! This is worse than that eye patch wearing freak and his snarky master that showed up last time.”

Kazuma made a rude gesture, and the spirit faded away. He looked around, certain that there had to be some valuables worth swiping. Oh, and the girls. Probably needed to keep Megumin from blowing the place up.

Meanwhile, Yunyun was tiptoeing through the mists of the cave, her lightsaber gripped firmly in her hands. “K-Kazuma? M-Megumin? Where are you?”

She looked around, her eyes glowing steadily brighter in the darkness, her breath coming in nervous pants.

“Dead. I have slain them.”

Yunyun gasped, and whirled, to see a pale faced figure in a dark robe and hood step out of the shadows. A great evil aura emanated from him, and Yunyun gasped in recognition.

“T-The Emperor!?”

“Heh-heh-heh. Soon, you shall join them, pathetic sub human,” the Emperor cackled. “Now DIIIIIEEEEEE!!!”

Raising his hands, the Emperor shot out bolts of lighting from his fingertips, which streaked towards Yunyun. She parried with her lightsaber, before crying out in rage. Raising one hand, she absorbed the lighting, her eyes now glowing an ominous red.

“YOU CAN’T HURT MY FRIENDS! I WON’T LET YOU!” Yunyun screamed, and unleashed her own barrage of force lightning.

The Emperor snarled, and for a moment, the two of them dueled, dark force powers that could have snuffled the life out of dozens filling the cave. At last, Yunyun looked up, and fired off a bolt at the ceiling. A chunk of rock broke off, and the Emperor screamed as it plummeted towards him, crushing him utterly.

“Hmph. No one hurts my friends,” Yunyun declared. She saw something through the mists, and stepped forward. A throne room appeared before her, with the throne facing the other way. She hesitantly stepped forward, spying a dark cowled figure sitting on the throne. “Kazuma? M-Megumin? Um, is it you?”

The throne slowly spun about, until the figure on the throne faced Yunyun, a grin on cracked lips beneath the cowl. Wrinkled hands slowly rose, and Yunyun held her breath. The figure lowered its hood…revealing a hideously deformed face, with her hair cut! She dropped her lightsaber, sinking to her knees as vile laughter echoed in the space.

“Nooooooo!” Yunyun shrieked, tears running down her face. “That’s what the Dark Side does to you? I look so awful!”

The dark version of her stopped laughing, a baffled expression passing over its face as Yunyun stood and raced forward. She gripped her Dark clone’s face in her hands, frantically studying it. “B-but I use the special moisturizers daily! I-I can’t look like this! No, I refuse to believe it! I-I’ll swear off the Dark Side! U-use extra exfoliating shampoo! And this hair, so lank! N-no, it can’t be! B-but my breasts!”

Yunyun frantically groped herself, a look of shock and horror on the dark reflection’s face.

“No! N-Not saggy and b-baggy! That’s not the fate of a Crimson Demon!? H-How am I supposed to seduce Kazuma and win the contest if I’m ugly!?”

Crying, Yunyun put her face in her hands, and fled the cave, causing the Dark Spirit to clutch itself in shock and horror.

“I…I feel violated…” it rasped. Then vanished.

Kazuma had just about decided that there was really no good loot at all in this stupid cave, which made it a complete waste of space, when the sound of sobbing and the patter of feet told him someone was coming. He turned around just in time for someone to slam into his chest.

“K-Kazuma!” Yunyun blubbered, clutching at Kazuma’s tunic and burying her face in his chest. “I-I’m not ugly, right?!”

Slowly, Kazuma put his arms around Yunyun. He wasn’t certain what had brought this on, but her pressing her breasts up against him meant he wasn’t going to argue with it. “No, of course not, you’ve got a smokin’ bod.”

“B-but what if I got ugly! W-would you hate me?” Yunyun whimpered.

“What? No, you could never be ugly! I promise, no matter what happens, I’ll always love you,” Kazuma said. Yunyun hiccuped, and squeezed him tightly. She was almost ready to look up and kiss him, when he spoke again. “How could I not love someone with such great boobs?”

“YOU HATE ME!” Yunyun wailed, and ran off, clutching at her chest, streaking out of the cave.

“What!? Hey, that’s not what I said!” Kazuma yelped, running after her. They had both nearly made it to the entrance, when a terrible dark presence’s aura fell over them. They both skidded to a stop, looking up at the ominous figure standing before them.

“MWAHAHAHA! BEHOLD, I AM MEGUMIN! SHE WHO HAS PLUNDERED THIS PATHETIC CAVE, AND SEIZED IT’S SECRETS!”

In her hands, Megumin was holding several holocrons that glowed with a dangerous red light, along with several light sabers with spikes and blades on them that told of their dark origins.

“Megumin, you can’t be serious! You know those are cursed!” Kazuma snapped, striding forward and slapping her arms, causing the whole load to fall to the ground with a crash. “What’s the Clan’s policy on dark cursed items!?”

“To always take them and seal them away, only bringing them out for direst need,” Megumin sighed.

“Right, exactly! And what dire need do we have?” Kazuma demanded.

Megumin snatched up a lightsaber with several impractical spikes, as well as an ominous skull carved into the hilt, and ignited it. “TO LOOK AS COOL AS POSSIBLE!”

“What? That’s not cool, that’s lame! It looks like the sort of kitsch you’d get at a cheap tourist shop that sells knock off sith relics!” Kazuma argued.

Megumin shied back, a look of horror on her face. “What!? No! These are authentic! I tricked the Dark Spirit into giving them to me! It did some lame thing where I fought an evil robot, and it turned out to be me all along, but that shows what it knows! Any Crimson Demon would be super excited to be turned into a killer cyborg with an awesome cape and cool armor!”

“I-It didn’t show that using the Dark Side would make you hideously ugly?” Yunyun asked tentatively.

Megumin paused, frowning. “Well my face was all mottled and grey, but I figured that was merely a result of my dark experiments, and would only serve to strike fear into the hearts of my foes.”

“Mottled and grey? Sounds like you went from cute to uggo real fast,” Kazuma snarked.

“S-shut up! It’s cool, not ugly! Right, Yunyun?” Megumin asked.

Yunyun broke down in tears again and turned away, causing Megumin to smirk. “Ha! I win again! He thinks I’m cute, and you’re ugly!”

“What!? That is not what I said! Besides, you might be cute, but Yunyun is smoking hot! She’s a full course meal, while you’re a flat bag of chips!” Kazuma argued.

“WHAT?! I AM NOT FLAT, I AM MERELY STILL DEVELOPING!” Megumin raged.

“You’re clearly crazy and drunk on the dark side, and you hurt Yunyun’s feelings,” Kazuma said, stepping over and patting Yunyun on the back. “She would never fall to evil.”

“I-I won’t! I’ll only use the Force powers that made you look pretty!” Yunyun vowed. Then hesitated. “Um, unless it’s an emergency. F-for some reason, the best powers all make you ugly…”

“Who told you that!? Crimson Demons and our superior breeding are immune to such pathetic diseases. Unless, of course, they would make us cooler and more mysterious!” Megumin bragged.

“What, is that what you’re worried about?” Kazuma asked. He pulled Yunyun into a hug, and patted her on the back. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you use so much dark powers that you turn into a hag.”

“R-really?” Yunyun asked hopefully. “I-I don’t want to be ugly…”

“Coward,” Megumin grumbled.

“Sure. Though, I mean, you will get old someday. But I’m sure you’ll be like, a MILF or something,” Kazuma said with a shrug.

Yunyun considered this, then pulled Kazuma into a kiss. However, she slipped to the side, then whispered in his ear, “if you ever ditch me for a younger woman, I will hunt you down, cut off your balls, saute them, and then feed them to you before killing you myself. Are we clear?”

“Um, crystal,” Kazuma said, swallowing hard.

Then he and Yunyun kissed some more, earning several disgusted sounds from Megumin. After a moment, she casually said, “Oh, I almost forgot, I had to leave something behind in exchange for these relics.”

Kazuma and Yunyun ignored Megumin, continuing their game of tongue hockey.

“You know what I left?” Megumin prompted. When her only answer was wet sucking noises, she answered her own question: “My entire bandolier of thermal detonators!”

Yoda was sitting outside, munching on a frog-like creature he’d managed to catch. It was so peaceful and quiet now. He’d forgotten what that was like, and how much he enjoyed it. Perhaps he should sneak off while his supposed padawans were in that cave. Find another uninhabited world he could retire to, unmolested by idiot apprentices.

“No. Fate of the universe, in the balance, it hangs. See this through, I must,” Yoda muttered, slurping down the last of the frog. His belly gurgled in protest, and he grimaced. “Stress eating, I am. Put on a full kilo I have. Good for my cholesterol, those three are not.”

He heard sounds from the cave, and looked up to see his three padawans appear at a dead run.

“HIT THE DECK!” Kazuma screamed, jumping over the log and catching Yoda in a flying tackle. They hit the soft, swampy ground, knocking the breath out of the old jedi master. He was just about to berate his apprentices, while the ground got up and slapped them all around as a deafening roar blotted out his hearing.

When the ground stopped trembling, and the trees quit falling over, Yoda slowly stood up. The dark side cave was gone, erased from existence. In its place was a smoldering crater. All around them, the trees of Dagobah had caught fire, and were smoldering. Steam and smoke filled the air, and the panicked cries of animals could be heard.

Slowly, Yoda turned to his groaning apprentices. Bits of their clothing and hair had caught fire, and all three of them looked utterly miserable.

“Uh, we exorcized the cave, master?” Kazuma offered.

Yoda hit him on the head with his cane. “THE WAY OF A JEDI THIS IS NOT! TRAIN YOU I SHALL UNTIL YOUR LEGS FALL OFF! RUN NOW, YOUNG FOOLS! IF CATCH YOU I DO, YOUR HIDES I WILL TAN!”

Screaming in pain and fear, all three of the young idiots ran off as Yoda sprang after them, thwacking any of them that slowed down too much with his staff.

True, this wasn’t doing anything for their inner peace and harmony, but it was making Yoda feel a lot better.

That night, after shooing his apprentices outside and laying down in his bed, Yoda was just about to drift off to sleep, when he felt an evil presence. Without opening his eyes, he spoke. “Hmm. So come, have you? Enough for you tempting my padawans was not. Visit evil in my home, will you?”

“Actually,” the Dark Force ghost said, sounding somewhat sheepish. “I was sort of…hoping you wouldn’t mind a roommate?”

Yoda cracked open one eye. “Already have three evil spirits haunting me. Need another, I do not.”

“Oh, well, yeah, I understand,” the ghost said. It floated there for a moment, and Yoda closed his eye, trying to decide if it was worth the effort of getting up and properly disposing of it.

“So, I was thinking…maybe we could get rid of them? If they weren’t around, I could, you know, haunt the swamp. Live off the malignant decay and rot, you know? But, uh, with those three around…sort of uncomfortable here now.”

“Three seconds you have to leave, before disposing of you I am.”

“I’m just saying! They’re not proper Dark Siders OR Light Siders. They throw off the whole balance of the Force! If something isn’t done, they’ll ruin every-”

Yoda summoned all his power, and concentrated on removing the spirit. It fled, and he rolled over. Then he opened both his eyes, his heart pounding.

“Not light side, not dark side…what side follow they?”

Outside, there was a sudden blast, and a mad cackle. “BWAH-HA-HA! I AM MEGUMIN! FOREMOST GENIUS OF THE CRIMSON DEMON CLAN, SHE WHO WILL-”

“WILL YOU SHUT UP!? SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP HERE!”

“Megumin, j-just because you’re jealous that Kazuma and I are sharing a tent-”

“NO! I need to replenish my supplies! Look, I have developed a new device that-”

“IF COMING OUT THERE I AM, THE BACK OF MY HAND YOU SHALL CATCH!” Yoda shouted.

“Yes master, sorry master!” the three chorused, and relative silence descended.

Yoda snorted. “Not light or dark. Madness. Sanity, I must restore.”

Then he went to bed, because that sounded like a task you shouldn’t tackle while sleep deprived.