“Yanagidate!”
“Huh, can I help you?”
“It’s me, Daiki! Don’t you remember? From the club!”
“Wait, I think I remember.”
“Actually who are you again?” Masashi genuinely questions.
“Well that’s ok if you have a short memory. But I am from that book club, run by Nagano-Senpai.”
“Nagano?! Does she want something from me?”
“She would like to speak with you.” The boy says in a ragged tone.
“You ok, you seem to be exhausted?”
“I-it’s nothing! I swear.” He panics.
Already sensing something odd about the situation, but also remembering what she said yesterday.
“Alright I’m coming.” He decides to head to the book club while Daiki walks beside him.
“W-well you see Nagano-Senpai said that it was really important, like, really bad.”
“Yes I heard it the first time.”
Opening the door and entering the room, Masashi is greeted by a bunch of people sitting at various tables.
“Oh?” He wonders what is really going on today.
“Nagano?! Something wrong?” Masashi asks with a curious tone.
“Yanagidate! Well, I’m sure you know already what I am going to say.”
“Sorry if I couldn’t speak to you fully, I was awfully tired yesterday.”
“It’s okay, I should be saying sorry. I called you at a inconvenient time.”
“Let’s get to talking, I’m sure you witnessed and probably experienced that attack on school. About more than a week ago.”
Nagano takes a deep sigh, crossing her legs.
“Yeah… I experienced it.”
His mind races with conflicting thoughts.
He knows other people probably experienced it on the level that he did, but he wonders if other people encountered the same creature that he had to face that day.
He guesses there were other Kara on that day besides the one that attacked Him, Okemia and Hotaru.
“Along with the blackouts and phones mysteriously stopped working it was quite a terrifying experience.”
“Many people assumed it was just a prank, after all, at least one person got arrested involving the situation.”
She expresses with a slight twitch in her fingers.
Nagano takes a quick glance at the outside window.
“Did they ever identify the people behind it? I haven’t really heard much from any school officials” Masashi says.
“I mean, did anyone ever speak up about it?”
“Well Yanagidate, I’d probably expect them to have some sort of assembly two days ago, to address that. But not a word from them.” Nagano fidgets around with her fingers.
“Thinking about it, yeah that is odd.”
“Have you been seeing things? Like the unexplainable. Like this school is cursed or something?” Nagano continues to fidget her fingers even moving towards her legs.
Masashi has a quick realization about something.
Though even he felt that something was off, he proposed it as the situation being thought of as a prank by what others think.
Despite knowing what really happened.
But thinking about it deeper, something did feel off, even in the slightest sense.
“I can’t say I didn’t see things.”
He knows the truth of what he experienced and can guess what happened to others.
But he doesn’t want to push the situation, knowing things are wrong he’ll investigate it himself.
He can’t shake the feeling.
There still might be one of those things in the school.
Nagano gets up from her chair and walks toward Masashi.
“It’s alright you don’t have to explain further.”
She pulls something out of a bag sitting on a chair.
“A few people I’ve talked to wanted to know if I had experienced it, sadly I did.”
From her back she reveals a book, it’s another volume of ‘Outcomes and Expectancies’.
“I got this a month ago, it’s an extra copy. It probably isn’t the volume you want but I hope it helps” She smiles a bit, though her face turns into one of worry.
“Oh sweet, thanks Nagano!”
“No problem.”
“Daiki!” Nagano calls.
“Yes, Nagano-Senpai. What do you need?”
She sighed.
“Call in the rest of the others who have experienced the supernatural.”
“After all, I am the president of this club, so I hope many more others can be exposed to what is really going on.”
Masashi puts the book in his bag.
He wonders if he can sense the thing, but focusing he can’t really pick up the signatures of Tamaryoku, only the faint ones of those around him.
“Nagano I’ll be going, I’ll come back later if you find out more information about it!” Masashi waves as he steps out of the room.
“Phew, that feeling still sticks to me…” Nagano grabs her arms.
Unknowingly to everyone around, Nagano rubs her body together.
She can’t shake the feeling.
She doesn’t know to feel petrified, she doesn’t know if to feel comfortable.
The sense Euphoria overcomes her as she thinks back to her encounter.
As Masashi walks down the halls, he contemplates.
More of those things in here, how great of a threat will it be?
Does it seem to be hiding?
The more that he thinks about it, the more the eerie feeling sets in.
“If I can’t sense it right now, I’ll just have to hunt it down later into the day” Masashi mutters.
“It really should not be hard to kill. After I’ve grown stronger to fight these things, I wonder if it’ll be enough” Masashi contemplates.
SMA-
Before anything, Masashi catches the person’s hand who was about to hit him.
“Surabukādo?” Masashi questions.
“Oho, hey. You actually caught my hand this time” Surabukādo says, impressed.
“I think I just did it on a fluke.”
“Well anyways, you wanna go ghost hunting?”
Surabukādo looks intrigued about what Masashi is asking.
At first on the day of that attack he didn’t believe about the ghosts, and people disappearing from those kinds of things.
He just assumed it was a crime normally happening in the area, but then the encounter with Okemia’s brother.
Even during the school attack he wasn’t in the building he just heard about what had happened from different people.
“Sure man, count me in!” Surabukādo says with excitement.
He looks back at him shocked.
“Your gonna join in just like that? You’re not going to question it?”
“To be honest, at that theater when it all went down. A part was thinking maybe it’s real, or maybe it’s just anxiety of being a teen.”
“Huh that doesn’t make sense? Ah, well, I get the anxiety part. But are you wanna go along with me?”
Surabukādo pats his shoulders.
“I’ll believe it! Don’t act like I’m a fool all the time, I just go with how I feel.”
“That’s reassuring, I guess were the same in the latter.”
Surabukādo walks ahead of him and starts walking backwards, he snickers at the fact that they’ll probably be doing something ridiculous.”
“It might be like Ghost Busters y’know? Except how are we going to capture this ghost?”
“We’ll just stuff in a container. Easy, right?”
“That sounds fun, but it’s gonna be a pain to contain it right?”
“Well whatever it is, hopefully it’ll stop the bathrooms from making odd sounds”
An eventful afternoon later.
It was quiet.
Masashi moved carefully, keeping his breathing shallow.
Looking from both sides of the hall, they move out.
“Surabukādo! How’s it look?” Masashi mutters under his breath.
“No one’s near, besides that janitor. I think there should be one teacher on the floor above us, other than that it’s all unknown to me.”
“Let’s keep moving then.”
Moving towards the area where Masashi felt the most flare up of pressure, both of them enter the gymnasium.
If this school had a basement, this would have been a lot scarier given the threat. Get faster updates on g.com.
“So what are we doing here?” Surabukādo questions.
“Nagano told me this is the place. After meeting with others who have experienced that day, this was one of the places where people felt that horrifying experience.”
Masashi says while trying to keep his voice down.
“Alright, I’ll start looking for clues!” Surabukādo waves as he checks for the abnormal.
While sensing Tamaryoku, Masashi can feel many different sources of it, animals like small birds, small insects that are hardly noticeable.
And even the occasionally higher than normal levels from people like Hashimoto and others far off.
Karas on the other hand give off an intense malicious presence, to ordinary people they cannot perceive these things, let alone sense them.
But the malicious intent gives the sense of fear to those without above average levels of Tamaryoku.
“Surabukādo! Any luck?” Masashi quietly tries to talk.
“No! Not at all.”
Masashi picks up a ball from one of the baskets that were left out.
Looking at the ball he infuses it with Tamaryoku.
Only picking up on this after Saijou initially trained him on the basics, he rolls the Tamaryoku infused ball onto the floor.
“What are you doing Masashi?”
“Testing something…”
“Aye Masashi, look at that vent up there!”
“It looks like it’s about to fall, the school should really get that checked out.”
“Actually that thing might fall and kill someone if it keeps hanging like that.”
ZZUNNNNNN!
A massive wave of malicious energy sweeps through the gym, Masashi and Surabukādo dart around to find out where the source of it is coming from.
“Where is it?!” Masashi panics looking around.
“I can actually start to sense something! Why did it suddenly announce its presence?”
“HEY MASASHI! You feeling this too?” Surabukādo shouts.
“Same as you, I wonder how long these goosebumps are gonna last.”
The creature manifests behind Surabukādo as its many eyes lock onto him.
Its gnarly appearance along with its gorilla like stance, freaks Masashi out.
“Huh?!” Masashi rushes towards Surabukādo.
“SURABUKADO! BEHIND YOU GET OUT THE WAY!” he shouts panicking.
Surabukādo, feeling the presence.
Turns around to the creature that suddenly manifested in their space.
“W-what the hell is that!?”
Surabukādo cannot see the creature but feels the deadly aura emitting from it forming into the maliciousness they are sensing.
BIWISH!
The creature slams its fist on the ground, sending Surabukādo flying into the wall.
“Surabukādo!” Masashi yells out.
Masashi starts levitating off the ground as other objects fly past him at quick speeds.
“Can this thing control gravity?!”
Having enough of it, Masashi unleashes his aura.
Bouncing off the wall due the gravity he leaps at the creature hoping to tag it.
“Yūrei Kusari!”
A transparent bluish chain swirls around Masashi’s hand as he swings it hoping to tag the creature.
BIZZUT!
“That same teleporting ability?!”
The Creature tries slamming its club like hands at Masashi.
He pushes against the creature using the gravity to his advantage.
Suddenly, the intense gravity suddenly slams Masashi to the floor.
“So it can control gravity to this extent.”
The creature slams its club-like arms into Masashi.
“MASASHI!” Surabukādo yells despite not seeing the creature, only the impact.
Massive amounts of dust clouds are generated as the creature relentlessly slams its fist into the ground.
“M-masashi?!”
The creature then turns its attention to Surabukādo.
Despite not being able to see the creature, Surabukādo feels the intense pressure charging towards him.
“S-shit shit” Surabukādo shouts.
THUNG!
A large impact was made by the creature, causing random items to go flying wildly in the gravitation field.
“M-masashi!”
The dust clears and Masashi is revealed to be blocking the creatures attack, his clothes mildly tattered.
“Hey man, don’t worry I got this thing” Masashi reassures.
Masashi swiftly moves up onto its club-like forearms and wraps his chains around the creature’s arms.
“KAKOMU!” He shouts.
Chains began sprouting from the floor, even parts of the walls.
Impaling the creature as its movements are seemingly brought to a halt.
“I didn’t expect that to work as well as it did. I figured if I infused that ball with my Tamaryoku I could probably pick up where that creature was.”
“But that didn’t work, so I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Having the ball roll around the floor, it left around small residues of Masashi’s Tamaryoku.
The creature’s ability did the rest of the work, allowing the Tamaryoku to spread all around.
“Surabukādo! Let’s go! We have to get away from it” Masashi urges.
“Gotcha!”
Masashi and Surabukādo make their way towards the other side of the gymnasium, having trouble moving towards the gravity field.
The creature restlessly moves trying to break out of the chains, it seems like it did not take as much damage as Masashi intended it to.
“Yo! dude bro!” Surabukādo says with bated breath.
“What are we supposed to do with that thing, and can you see it yourself?”
“Yeah Surabukādo… I can see it clearly.”
“I didn’t know you could do all that!” Surabukādo questions what Masashi really is.
The creature breaks free from the chain and charges at Surabukādo.
This action bewilders Masashi as he charges at it.
Suddenly something touches his shoulder.
“Have no fear, seek no challenge. How can you fight an enemy which understands the laws of this world? Choose to meet it at a neutral point.”
“Fantazumu!”
The hand leaves Masashi’s shoulders, but Masashi tries to find meaning in that.
Closing his eyes Masashi focuses and forgets everything in his surroundings.
The creature, Surabukādo, even the distorted field.
“Subete mo Kakusarete…” Masashi utters not in words but only in mind.
“I can see so much more! Wait?! I can feel things so clearly around me” Masashi only thinks but cannot speak.
Turning at the Kara, it doesn’t seem to notice him, not even Surabukādo seems to see him?
He starts to think a bit, if this was the ability that allowed him to survive that attack.
Did Fantazumu help Masashi?
Or was it activated because of his survival instincts.
Without time to think Masashi Manifests into reality, striking the beast, doing little more than irritating the creature.
WHOOSH!
The creature blows back Masashi and Surabukādo, flinging them to the other side of the room.
Before that Surabukādo throws a ball at the creature’s face.
It does nothing to it, but Surabukādo is glad to hit something he cannot perceive.
“Hey dude, what are we going to do now?
Surabukādo utters with intensity.
The creature’s presence exudes towards the both of them.
“The to of yu prey ar somthing of intres to me. Whi do yu nt ackpet my gift!”
For the first time the creature speaks.
Masashi recalled back to when he first encountered one of these at the school.
It didn’t speak this clearly, but its words were so broken, he could barely understand it.
“You’re hearing this, Masashi, right?”
Surabukādo’s ears ring as he is trying to understand.
“It sounds like it is trying to speak.”
The creature begins charging up its fists to slam into the ground.
Both Masashi and Surabukādo brace themselves for whatever attack it is trying to do.
SWISH
“Who is that?” Surabukādo shouts looking up at the person who seemingly teleported into the air.
The person drives their spear deep into the creature’s head.
Sending it crashing down into the floor.
“Did he just kill that thing? And with ease too while we were having trouble!” Masashi says while a little exhausted.
As the dust from the impact clears, Masashi sees the person clearly.
They wave their spear to clean it from the creature’s blood.
“Mr. Hashimoto?!” Masashi says confused.
“Hey Masashi, You took a while to come out of school, It’s been 15 minutes since it ended. So I had to get out of my food break and come here.”
“You actually served as a great distraction toward that thing, it gave me the opening to finish it in one plunge.”
Hashimoto utters while jumping off the now deceased creature.
“Who is this?” Surabukādo is confused at what has just happened.
“Long story.”
“I didn’t expect to see you fighting this Gurētohasuku. I didn’t think these things would be out here” Hashimoto says while kicking the creature as it slowly disintegrates into the air.
“Apparently this thing was still in my school, I had a suspicion something felt wrong. So I came to investigate.”
“Well actually Masashi, you completed a mission that was supposed to be carried out here.”
“Wait really?’ Masashi sounded puzzled.
Hashimoto explains how the incident that happened at this school over a week ago was picked up by them.
Having seen it, they expected only a few Ressāhasuku.
After having the police come by and some of their officials come to investigate at a different time, they explored the school, wiping out much of the weaker Kara’s.
But they didn’t expect something like that to still be alive here.
“Ah I see. So it looks like I found it and you happened to come in and kill it?” Masashi questions.
“You’re right Masashi. But don’t worry I’ll tell them you killed it, so you can trust points.”
“Trust points?”
“Eh, it’s not really a thing. It’s more of a way of me saying they will see you as more useful.”
“After all, it’s important they look at you in a favorable way.”
“Well, I can’t say what to make of this gym, it sure is a mess. I guess your school would have to find out that their gym is like this.”
“Both of you come, let’s move from this area after all. You wouldn’t want to be noticed by the staff.”
All of them make their way out of the school.
As it appears that the janitors seem to be listening to music.
While Masashi exits the building he looks back and doesn’t feel that odd feeling anymore.
He wonders if his school life would go back to normal, now since that thing is gone.
He looks at the golden yellow sky, as the afternoon sun rays down at them.
It’s like the sight that this March is hopeful.
Looking back he looks up at the school entrance.
“I think. That is the last of that, it already feels better than it is now.”
Surabukādo places his arm on Masashi’s shoulder.
“Hey you’re gonna have to tell me what really was going on back there.”
He catches his breath for a moment.
“Whatever that invisible thing was. It was chaos itself.” He lets out a half hearted laugh.
“I’ll tell you what I know about these things tomorrow, sorry but my mind is kinda racing right now.”
Surabukādo smirks before placing his hands on his waist.
“Well then! Whatever these phantoms are, there is clearly no match for you.”
“Uh, I think it’s the other way around. Well school should be… relatively normal now.”
Surabukādo extends his hand to help Masashi.
Dap
“Hey it’s getting late, but do you wanna hit my place later?” Masashi suggests.
“I’ll see my mom about that, but yeah I might come to yours.”
“Hey Masashi? How long are you gonna stay there?” Hashimoto shouts.
“I’ll be there in a minute…” he sighs, “See you later Surabukādo.”
They come in for a hug.
“Ha, I’ll see about that. Later dude.” Surabukādo smiles as he departs for his home.
The breeze of spring blows thoroughly throughout the trees and just outside the school grounds.
Masashi wonders if he can reminisce on this season.
He wishes it could stay like this.
Just a little longer.
Just one last time.
DOUNK!
Slamming his fist to the ground.
A man dressed in black, grits his teeth.
He can’t believe what is coming from the phone, his grip tightens, his eyes remain fierce.
“So that’s it? The end of all things?”
Static fills the phone, seeming to break up now and then.
“And when exactly does he plan to return?”
“I have a meeting to go back to, I’ll call you back later.
“Don’t disappoint in the things you people are doing.”
Beep
“Somehow someway. People just find ways to mess things up, can’t get things done with someone who can’t lead without direction…”
“Oh well.”
Knock
Knock
“You may come in.”
“Oh you’re in now?”
“Yes, as you can see, I am in today.”
“W-well sir, I want to know the next step for the company’s growth. I’ll have to report it to the analytical team!”
“We’ll resell it even if we have to. Besides, the old man has had stable growth for the company for 20 years since its inception.”
“But sir! We have to reconsider selling it towards one of our bigger spon–”
“Enough of it already.”
He waves his hands off in dismissal.
“I don’t want anyone to have a huge percentage of ownership in this company. I’m tired of these smart asses that think they can cut us off, with such a one sided deal!”
His voice stays at a constant level, despite the situation he faces.
“We will cut a deal with one of the 5 big sponsors we have. I want you to send out contracts to each of them, find which one of them agrees to sign it. After all this is a business.”
“You are to be dismissed.”
“Y-yes! Mr Hyuganatsu!”
The man hurriedly exits the door.
“Tsk tsk, what would that old man want with Okemia? After all, I am the only rightful heir. I wonder what went through your mind trusting your fortune with a high school girl.”
“My sister nonetheless, what type of substance was he when making that decision?”
Sip
“Having to snatch you out of that theater a few days ago, if that old man wants to give her that. Then I’ll teach her what control actually looks like.”
The door of the office started to shake with intensity, the table, and the walls began to form cracks around each corner.
Even with sponsors wanting to cut the company off.
While his old man thinks that having a family meeting over inheritance is a good one.
Him having to deal with people who really don’t know how to do things properly.
Only one thing lies on his mind, and that is absolute authority.
Even the thought of it has him gritting and cracking a tooth under the pressure.