You emerge from what seemed like a blue, windy fog, and find yourself at the fountain in front of the Alpha Beta Alpha house. Failiel makes only a small bulge in your stomach, and she seems weightless. You wonder if this happens with everyone you’ll swallow, or if mages are an exception. It’s a bit uncomfortable thinking about what she said- not to worry about digestion because she wouldn’t let you. Not being a mage yourself, you can’t help but wonder what sort of side affects may result from being shrunken earlier and having your digestive process put on hold now. It’s not that you particularly want to digest her (not someone to make angry), but still, weird.

You reluctantly make your way up to the bright blue, wooden steps of the dreaded ABA house. The secretary warned you that this was the hardest one for guys to enter- surely you can’t be through already… In fact, you wonder if they’ll even remember you from an hour ago. You don’t remember anyone writing your name down. All too soon, you’re at the door. You open it and quickly walk into the main room.

“Ah, look who’s back! It’s the male pledge- and he’s carrying!” Looks like they remembered you after all.

“Hi everyone. I got someone. Uh, do I pass?”

The head girl gives a short laugh. “Not just yet. There’s still one more thing you have to do.”

“O-Ok. What’s that?”

A girl emerges from somewhere in the back and hands a vial to the head girl, then retreats. “Well,” the girl continues, “we don’t allow the initiation process outside our house.”

“Let it outside?”

“Yeah, like maybe the girl inside your gut right now.”

“I see,” you reply, liking the sound of this less by the moment. “So how exactly do you prevent that?”

The girls all look at each other, and then back at you like they’re about to tell you an amazing secret. “Simple. You’ll digest her.”

Uh-Oh. How are you going to do that?! Failiel seemed terrified of being eaten- she’s definitely not going to allow that! She even said so herself! Think fast- got it!

“I don’t see how that’ll work. The nurse made me drink this stuff when I got here- she’ll just reform, secrets and all.” There we go.

Unfortunately, the girls just giggle. Evidently, they have a few more initiation secrets to reveal. “Not after you drink this!” The head girl holds up the vial she was given. “This stuff has been known to get rid of anyone; this one time, a newbie managed to swallow a mage- you’ll meet one sooner or later around here, they do magic- anyways, mages can reform after digestion even if you skipped the nurse’s potion- the girl took a dose of this, and poof! Problem solved!”

Great! Failiel’s going to kill you if you go anywhere near that bottle. Actually, that makes you think…

“A mage?” You act as though you’ve never heard of one- pretty much true as of an hour or so ago. “If they can use magic, how did your recruit manage to take that stuff without getting, I dunno, whatever mages do? And how did she digest a mage in the first place?” Questions you have particular interest in, given your situation.

The girls give each other another one of those conspiratorial looks. They’re becoming weirder by the minute. “This whole house is protected from magic,” the head girl whispers, giving you a fierce grin. You are clearly supposed to delight in how protected all of you are from the hungry mages of the school. It just doesn’t register right, though, given that you have one in your stomach.

And that means, you suddenly realize, that as soon as your stomach gets around to kicking into gear, Failiel is going to be digested. Add to that a draught from the head girl’s magic bottle, and she won’t come back, either…