Fright Night

Madoka leaned against the windowsill of the student council room. “Hey,” she said, glancing over at Ran, “you sure the Prez was okay this morning? He looked like a zombie.”

Ran grunted, arms crossed. “You know how he is. Probably stayed up all night helping someone, or something.”

Madoka laughed softly. “Wouldn’t even surprise me.”

Ran shifted, still frowning. “He said he was fine, huh?”

Madoka nodded. “Yeah. All smiles, as usual. Said something like, ‘I’m good, promise. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’” She mimicked his cheerful tone perfectly, rolling her eyes. “That’s what he always says right before something goes sideways.”

“Classic Jinkō,” Ran muttered. “Man’s allergic to showing weakness.”

Before Madoka could respond, the door slid open — Yae and Yaya stepped in, sunlight spilling behind them like a warm spotlight. Yaya was carrying a paper bag nearly her size, grinning as always, while Yae looked like she hadn’t slept either, her tie half undone, hair pinned loosely to one side.

“Hey,” Yae said.

Madoka straightened up. “Hey. You two just coming in now?”

Yaya nodded enthusiastically. “Mhm! We saw the president outside!”

Ran perked up. “He finally showed?”

Yae shook her head. “No. He told us to go on ahead without him. Said he’d join later.”

Madoka sighed, rubbing her temples. “That’s not ominous at all.

Ran shot her a look. “He say what he was doing?”

Yae leaned against the wall, crossing one leg over the other. “He didn’t. Just smiled that usual way of his. Said something about ‘finishing up a little errand.’”

Madoka made a face. “An errand? On school grounds?”

Yaya tilted her head. “Maybe it’s something nice! Like picking flowers for someone!”

Ran snorted. “Yeah, or maybe it’s another of his cursed side quests. Guy’s like a walking magnet for weird stuff.”

Yaya blinked, clutching the paper bag to her chest. “Should we go look for him?”

Madoka smiled. “Nope! He said he’d come, and if we go running after him, he’ll just brush it off and say we’re overreacting. You know him.”

Yae nodded slowly. “Then we give him a little time. But he better be here by the time of the meeting…”




Takaishi spotted him from the end of the hall and for a second, he genuinely thought he was hallucinating.

Shu Jinkō was walking toward him, arms completely full of… things. Not books, not papers, but an entire stack of nonsense.

A small fire extinguisher tucked under one arm.
A coiled rope slung over his shoulder.
The skeletal model from the science lab, “Mr. Bones,” complete with sunglasses, cradled in the other arm like a child.

Shu caught Takaishi staring, smiled like this was the most normal thing in the world, and said, “Heya!”

Takaishi blinked. “Uh. Prez… what are you doing?”

“Just some preparations,” Shu said cheerfully.

“…Preparations?”

“Yup.” He shifted the skeleton slightly to keep its skull from falling off. “And a bit of disaster prevention.”

Takaishi opened his mouth, then closed it again. There were so many possible questions and none of them felt adequate.

In the end, he just sighed. “Right. Preparations.”

Shu beamed, as if validated. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

They started walking down the hall together, Takaishi automatically slowing his pace so Shu could juggle his ridiculous haul. He glanced at him again, unsure if he should even bother asking.

“Hey, uh, Prez?”

“Mm?”

“I wanted to talk to you for a bit. You’re always running around doing… stuff,” he said, waving vaguely at the fire extinguisher, “so I figured I’d catch you before the meeting.”

“Ah, sorry about that.” Shu laughed lightly, resting the skeleton’s skull on his shoulder as if it were an old friend. “Didn’t mean to be hard to find. What’s up?”

“It’s nothing big,” Takaishi said quickly. “Just… you know, after what happened the other week, I’ve been thinking.”

“About the Yakuza thing?”

“Yeah. That.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And about how—” he gestured vaguely at Shu’s bandaged hand “—that.

Shu just shrugged, that same easy grin never leaving his face. “Oh, no, no don't worry, I did this myself, the Yakuza haven't bothered me at all!”

“Ah, well—”

“Hey, it's good, really,” Shu interrupted, motioning toward the skeleton’s dangling arm. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work ahead of me.”

Shu adjusted the skeleton one last time, balanced the extinguisher against his hip, then suddenly snapped his fingers. “Oh, right! Almost forgot.”

Takaishi looked up. “What now?”

Shu set the skeleton down gently, as gently as one could set down a plastic corpse, and rummaged through his jacket pocket. Out came a white envelope, creased but neatly sealed, his name written on it in that messy but unmistakably Shu handwriting.

He handed it to Takaishi. “Here. I’ll leave this with you, just in case.”

Takaishi frowned, immediately uneasy. “Just in case what?”

Shu was already walking away, waving over his shoulder. “You’ll know if you need to open it! Don’t worry about it too much, alright?”

“Prez, wait—”

But he was gone. Down the hall, out the doors, swallowed by the din of students and sunlight, leaving Takaishi alone with a very bad feeling.

He looked down at the envelope again.

Shu Jinkō’s will.

Takaishi’s stomach sank. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…”


Later, after school.

The student council room was packed, not just with the usual members, but a few extra chairs dragged in from neighboring classrooms. Madoka, Momo, Sayaka, and Ai sat along one side, while Yae stood at the front, her clipboard under one arm and her patience visibly thinning by the second.

“Where the hell is that idiot?” she said flatly, scanning the room like she could will Shu into appearing.

Madoka raised her hand halfway, tone apologetic but not surprised. “Oh, I saw him earlier. He told me to tell everyone to start without him. Said he’s, quote, ‘very busy.’”

Ran groaned, slumping into his chair. “Of course he is.”

Kaoru adjusted her glasses, muttering, “You’d think the president of the council would attend his own meeting.”

Yaya piped up cheerfully, “Maybe he’s planning a surprise! Like last time with the fireworks!”

Yae pinched the bridge of her nose. “If he brings another fire hazard into a meeting...”

Madoka laughed under her breath. “Don’t worry, Vice-Prez. I’m sure whatever he’s doing, it’s something equally stupid.”

Equally is not comforting.”

Sayaka, sitting cross-legged backward on her chair, grinned. “You guys worry too much. Prez probably just found a cat stuck in a tree or something. Again.”

Ran leaned over. “He found Yaya stuck in a tree that time.”

“Exactly!” Yaya shot back proudly. “The Prez’s reliable.”

Across the table, Momo sighed, arms folded. “Reliable’s not the word I’d use.”

Yae ignored the chatter, flipping through her notes. “Alright. Since our fearless leader decided to go AWOL, we’ll proceed without him."

The door slid open right before Yae’s explanation, and all eyes turned as Takaishi stepped in, tall, apologetic.

“Ah— sorry I’m late,” he said, giving a short bow before shuffling to an empty seat. His hair was slightly disheveled, his expression nervous in that Takaishi way, the kind that said he’d done nothing wrong, but somehow still felt guilty.

“Sit,” Yae said, not unkindly, but without missing a beat. “We were just about to start the main briefing.”

“R-right.” He nodded, sitting between Ran and Sayaka, still holding the envelope like it might burn through his hand.

The air in the room felt tense, not hostile, but focused. Everyone present could tell this wasn’t just another meeting about cleanup duty or festival funding.

Yae flipped through her notes and cleared her throat. “Alright. Here’s the situation.”

Madoka crossed her arms, taking over smoothly, her tone casual but steady. “You all remember the incident with the Census Club a while back? The Garganta that opened during that mess?”

Momo nodded. “Hard to forget. Creepy portal. Bad vibes.”

Ran leaned forward. “On school grounds no less.”

“That’s the problem,” Yae said flatly. “The school is supposed to be protected against stuff like that. But lately…” She glanced toward the chalkboard, where a hand-drawn map of Higan was pinned, dotted with small red circles. “There’s been activity again. Supernatural disturbances. Poltergeist-like manifestations, all in sequence.”

Kaoru adjusted her glasses. “Manifestations?”

Yaya hugged her notepad close, wide-eyed. “Like… ghosts?”

Ran muttered, “Great. Just what we needed.”

Yae clicked her pen and continued half in that clipped rhythm she slipped into when she was in full detective mode.

“Now, regarding the disturbances themselves… this isn’t just cheap ghost-story material. These are structured events. Repetitive, escalating, and violent.”

She flipped to the next page on her clipboard, where crude photos, printed in black and white from the school’s old copier, were paperclipped together.

“Exhibit A: the gymnasium. Three nights ago. At approximately 3:14 a.m., the night guard reported a sound like metal warping. When staff investigated in the morning, they found every chair and table in the east storage room bent inward with their legs twisted like wire, tied together in one pile.”

She tapped the photo. “Each leg was bent identically. At least two dozen of them. No human could’ve done that in the time between patrols.”

Ran leaned back in his chair, whistling low. “So… what? Ghost weightlifting club?”

“Not funny,” Yae deadpanned. “And the next night, on the sports field —”

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Madoka cut in. “The turf got scorched in a perfect circle, right? Like a crop mark.”

“Exactly. And last night at the club building, claw marks across the ceiling, all down the hallway.”

Meanwhile, off to the side, Kaoru leaned slightly toward Ai. Her voice was soft, almost hesitant.

“You came because you thought Kaicho would be here, didn’t you?”

Ai’s gaze stayed locked forward, her fingers fidgeting imperceptibly beneath the table.

Kaoru sighed quietly, awkwardly trying to fill the silence. “He’ll… probably show up later. You know how he is. He always does. You’ll see him soon.”

Ai didn’t respond. But her shoulders loosened just a little, that tiny flicker of relief Kaoru had learned to spot after weeks of watching her carefully.

Across the table, Madoka propped her chin in her hand, looking to Sayaka.

“So, what about Mei? She’s usually the first to volunteer for anything that sounds remotely mystical and occult.”

Sayaka tilted her head back, stretching her arms. “She couldn’t come. Something about her grandma and Kusanagi-san needing her help with ‘energy alignment’ or whatever. Sounded serious, so I came instead.”

“Energy alignment,” Ran muttered. “Sounds like a spa treatment.”

Sayaka grinned. “You’d be surprised.”

Madoka chuckled, shaking her head. “Alright, noted. Same for Kanna-p, by the way — she’s busy today too. Shame, she’d have loved this.”

Yae gave her a sidelong glance. “Kanae would’ve loved a potential haunting?”

“Well, not loved,” Madoka said lightly. “More like it'd be fitting for her.”

Ran groaned. “We’re doomed.”

Yae pointed to the board. “The first event happened three nights ago, at the gymnasium. The next night, the activity moved to the sports field. Then last night, to the club building.” Her pen tapped along the red circles as she spoke, forming a curve that began to close into a ring. “Clockwise pattern, clear as day. Which means…”

“The next disturbance will happen at the main school building. Possibly tonight. If we want to intercept it, we’ll need to prepare now.

Madoka gave a half-smile. “Then I guess it’s ghostbusting time.”




Night crept over Higan like ink spreading through water.

The school was quieter than it had ever been, no distant chatter, no sounds of steps, only the groan of cooling metal every few seconds.

The Student Council, their friends, and the stragglers who somehow always got caught up in these things stood in the courtyard under the yellow glow of the lamps, each of them clutching their chosen “ghost-hunting” supplies: flashlights, walkie talkies, talismans, salt packets, cameras, and, because Sayaka insisted, snacks.

Madoka clapped her hands once. “Alright, everyone. Time to split up and look for clues!”

Ran groaned. “We are not doing this the Scooby-Doo way again.”

Sayaka leaned against him, smirking. “C’mon, you know it's a classic!”

Kaoru, who had been quietly flipping through a small notebook of observations, sighed. “This is exactly the kind of scenario where people die in horror movies.”

Yae, of course, was completely unfazed. “Relax. I already made the pairings. Try to stay in your designated routes. If you see anything move that shouldn’t, radio it in. Now, Sayaka.”

Sayaka bounced on her heels beside her. “Oh! So I’m with you then, Vice-Prez?”

Yae gave her a small nod. “Yes. I tried to make the pairs to balance combat ability, so everyone is paired with at least a fighter.”

Sayaka grinned. “Oh my, Ace Detective Yae Zennami needs a knight in shining armor to protect her. I guess you will have to bear with me instad of the Prez~. ”

"That has nothing to do with it!"

Madoka twirled a lock of her hair. “So who’s with who, oh fearless detective?”

Yae checked her list, pretending to read off it even though she’d clearly memorized it.

“Sayaka and I will handle the east wing.”

Sayaka gave a mock salute. “Roger!”

“Madoka, you’re with Ran. Take the west corridor and the library.”

Madoka smirked. “I'll try to keep Ran from getting too spooked!”

“Hey after that house visit I'm sure this will be easy,” Ran said.

“Kaoru, Ai, and Takaishi—you’ll take the central hallways and classrooms.”

Kaoru blinked. “Three people?”

Yae’s tone was innocent. “Safety in numbers. Kaoru isn't awakened so she should have extra protection. Besides, you get an extra set of eyes.”

Kaoru followed her gaze, to Ai, who stood quietly beside Takaishi, head slightly lowered. Then she looked back at Yae, whose faintly smug little smile made it all click.

Oh, you did this on purpose, Kaoru thought flatly.

Yae simply turned away, too pleased with herself.

“And that leaves Momo and Yaya for the courtyard perimeter and maintenance building.”

Yaya pumped her fist. “Team gangster! Let’s go!”

Momo sighed. “I'm not a gangster.”

The group split off, beams of light cutting through the darkness.




The courtyard of Higan at night was a different world.

During the day it was all warm concrete, sun-bleached benches, chatter and laughter.

Now, it was washed in cold, silvery moonlight, empty, silent, the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel too loud.

The lampposts buzzed faintly.

“Wow,” Yaya whispered, balancing her flashlight on her head like a miner’s lamp. “It’s like a different place.”

Momo cracked open a can of soda she’d snuck in her coat pocket. “I don't even want to be here during the day, why the hell am I here at night,” she muttered, scanning the long garden paths with her own beam.

“Spooky!” Yaya said cheerfully, skipping ahead.

“Hey—stay close.”

Yaya stopped, turning on her heel to walk backward, facing Momo with that too-bright grin of hers. “C’mon, Miss Momo, don’t tell me you’re scared.”

Momo glared. “Scared? Of what? Dirt and bad lighting?”

“Uh-huh.” Yaya pointed her flashlight toward the old cherry tree at the far end of the courtyard. “Then what’s that?

On the ground, in the narrow band of her light, were a set of footprints, bare feet, small, black as charcoal. They weren’t impressed into the dirt or dusted on top of it; they looked drawn, as if burned into the concrete itself.

They started in the middle of the walkway, no first step, no last, just a dozen prints tapering off into nothing.

“…Creepy,” Yaya murmured. She crouched to touch one, then pulled her hand back. “It’s cold. Like… metal cold.”

Momo glanced around. “Someone’s screwing with us.”

“Then where’s the someone?” Yaya whispered.

Their flashlights flickered.

Out past the garden beds, something pale slid behind the old storage shed. Not a person, not really. Just the suggestion of one, a shape too tall and too thin, as if stretched.

Momo’s instincts kicked in; she took two steps forward, beam cutting through the dark. “Hey!”

Nothing. Only the sound of gravel settling under her feet.

When she turned back to Yaya, the footprints were gone. The same path, perfectly clean.

“…You saw them, right?”

Yaya nodded too fast. “Uh-huh. Definitely.”

They moved on, quieter now.

Near the cherry tree, Yaya’s light passed over the trunk, and caught the faint outline of fingers.

Black smudges, five of them, dragging downward as if someone had tried to climb the tree and then melted away.

Momo felt her throat go dry. “Alright. We mark this spot and go report—”

Yaya’s beam wavered. “Momo…”

She turned.

At the far edge of the courtyard, in the corner where the light didn’t reach, something stood. Or maybe hung.

The moon caught only part of it, skin, or maybe cloth, white enough to hurt the eyes, and the faint shape of hair trailing like seaweed in water.

It didn’t move, not even to sway.

Momo blinked, and it was gone.

She dragged a hand down her face. “Okay. Screw this. We’re leaving.”

Yaya didn’t argue.

They walked back to the main hall, fast but not running, neither willing to turn their backs on the courtyard entirely.

Behind them, the lamps buzzed again, one by one, until the last bulb near the cherry tree flared bright white, then went out with a faint pop.




Takaishi walked a few steps ahead, flashlight beam sweeping from wall to wall.

The quiet in the hall was thick, oppressive, heavy in the chest.

Behind him, Kaoru’s steady, clipped footfalls echoed with the precision of someone keeping herself calm by counting her steps.

And just behind her, Ai’s.

Ai didn’t walk so much as drift, her shoes barely scuffing the floor. Her flashlight hung low, barely illuminating her knees. Shadows draped across her face like ink stains.

After a while, Ai’s whisper came from far too close to Kaoru’s ear:
“You like Takaishi Kuroda, don’t you, Kao Kao?”

Kaoru nearly dropped her flashlight. “Wh—what?”

Ai tilted her head, pale eyes catching the faint light as she leaned closer. “You always glance at him when he’s not looking. You did it three times in the last five minutes.”

Kaoru tensed, pulse in her throat. “We’re in a dangerous situation, Ai. Don’t—don’t start this.”

Ai’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You should be thankful to Yae Zennami for arranging it this way,” she murmured, voice low and syrupy. “I could leave you two be. Let you have privacy.”

“Absolutely not,” Kaoru hissed. “We’re working. This isn’t—this isn’t for fun.”

Ai’s head tilted further, too far, the motion almost boneless. “Shu-kun talks to him sometimes, doesn’t he? That's why I've been taking notes on him. You must like him. That gentleness.”

Kaoru took a step back. “Stop.”

Takaishi turned, blinking. “You guys okay back there?”

Kaoru straightened instantly. “Fine.”

Ai was smiling faintly, mouth too still for it to feel natural.

Takaishi shrugged and turned back around, then stopped.

There were handprints on the floor.

Dozens of them. Small, black, and perfect, as if painted in soot. Crawling prints, leading down the hall ahead of them.

Takaishi crouched down, reaching out before Kaoru’s voice cut through the silence. “Don’t touch them.”

Bang.

A locker at the far end of the hallway slammed open by itself, door bending outward, metal screaming.

Kaoru whipped her flashlight toward it. Empty.

Takaishi jumped back, nearly tripping over a desk leg sticking into the corridor. “There’s nobody there!”

Ai didn’t flinch. She just stared down the hallway, eyes wide, lips parting like she was trying to listen to something nobody else could hear.

Then the smell hit—

Wet wood, rotting paper, and something faintly sweet, like perfume gone rancid.

Takaishi stepped closer to Kaoru. “Ugh—”

Her flashlight beam caught something standing at the end of the hallway for a split second—

Thin. Bent backward at the waist like a broken mannequin, arms dangling, head tilted completely upside down.

Then it wasn’t there.

Takaishi’s breathing hitched. “We should just radio this and go.”

But when they turned around, the classroom door they’d come from was closed again. The handle glistened faintly wet.

Kaoru’s hand tightened around her notebook.
She turned to Ai. “Don’t say a word about privacy again. We’re not—”

—alone.

Ai was gone.

Just gone.

The beam of Kaoru’s flashlight sliced through empty air and dust. She swore under her breath, voice trembling for the first time all evening. “Damn it, Ai…”

Takaishi swung his light around wildly. “She couldn’t have just—she was right here!

“Stay calm.” Kaoru’s tone was sharper than intended. “She’s impulsive, not supernatural.”

But even she didn’t sound convinced.

The room was suddenly colder. Not the ordinary kind of cold, but the kind that sank inside you, like something had taken the air from your lungs.

Kaoru walked toward the nearest window. She lifted her flashlight.

The beam hit glass, flared—
—and stopped.

Outside, there was nothing. Not the schoolyard, not the faint glow of the city, just black, a thick, endless dark that swallowed the light whole. Even when she pressed the torch against the glass, it barely illuminated her own reflection.

“…What the hell,” she whispered.

Takaishi moved beside her. “Power failure?”

Kaoru shook her head slowly. “If it was, we’d still see the some of the city lights, or the road. But there’s..."

Nothing. Like the world just stopped existing past that glass.

Takaishi tried the next window. Same result.

Pitch black, as if the light had been eaten.

A sound broke the silence then.

From above.

Not footsteps.
Not quite.

A heavy, chaotic tumbling, like furniture being overturned, followed by a series of thuds. Then the creak of a beam bending under weight, then nothing.

Kaoru’s heart hammered in her ears.

But surprisingly, Takaishi was already moving toward the stairwell. “Someone might be up there!”

“Wait—”

He didn’t. He sprinted, hands on the door handle, pulling at it. Locked. He took a step back. “Stand clear.”

“Takaishi—don’t—”

He kicked.

The sound of his foot hitting the door cracked like a gunshot through the hall.

Takaishi didn’t hesitate—he rushed out into the corridor beyond, flashlight jerking in his hand, ready to sprint up the next stairwell.

“Wait!” Kaoru’s voice snapped like a whip.

He stopped mid-stride, half turned back, breathing fast. “Someone could be in danger—didn’t you hear that?!”

Her own light flickered as she caught up to him. “There’s no one up there, Takaishi. Nobody’s been assigned to the second floor. Everyone’s down here or outside.”

He blinked, trying to process it. “Then who the hell’s—”

A faint sound brushed the edges of their hearing, a scrape, like fingernails on glass. Both froze.

The windows lining the hallway had gone dark just like the ones in the classroom, their glass black and depthless as ink. Kaoru’s light hit the surface and vanished, swallowed whole. Her stomach tightened.

Then, for just a second—
movement.

A shape, just outside the glass.
It darted out of the beam’s reach too fast to see clearly.
Gone before Kaoru’s mind could form words for it.

She felt her breath stutter.
“...Something’s out there.”

Takaishi turned toward her, face pale. “What?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes were fixed on the nearest window.

The darkness outside had changed. Slowly, as if sighing, the black began to thin, not with light, exactly, but clarity. The outlines of the courtyard returned: the silhouettes of trees, the faint gleam of the track fence. The normal world bleeding back through.

Kaoru blinked once, twice. It was just the schoolyard again. Quiet. Empty.

Takaishi exhaled, tension draining from his shoulders.

Kaoru didn’t lower her flashlight.

A chill draft slipped through the cracked door they’d come from, carrying the faint smell of chalk and iron.

Kaoru glanced back over her shoulder.

And for a single instant, she swore she saw someone standing outside
a tall figure, still and silent, just at the edge of the beam,
its face pressed flat against the window glass,
smiling.




The west corridor was quiet, just the way Ran liked it.

Madoka trailed beside him, flashlight resting on her shoulder, expression halfway between bored and amused. “You know, for a ghost hunting mission, this ghost is doing a terrible job at scaring us,” she said. “I was at least expecting a chair to fly at my face by now.”

Ran glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t jinx it.”

She grinned. “C’mon, big guy. You’re not actually scared of ghosts, are you?”

“We’ve fought actual monsters,” Ran muttered.

They passed the library’s tall doors, their flashlights glinting off the small brass plaques. Everything inside was lined in shadow, neat and undisturbed. No flickering lights, no eerie whispers, just rows of books stretching endlessly.

Madoka peered in through the small window on the door. “Kinda cozy. Like a sleepover. I bet most people have wondered what's it like to stay in school at night.”

“I could name a couple that probably don't,” Ran replied, pushing the door open.

The library was massive. Their footsteps echoed softly over the polished floor as the beams of light danced across the spines of hundreds of old volumes.

“Hey,” Madoka said, flipping through one of the returned books. “Wouldn't it be easier if me or Kanna-p warded off the premises? Could save us a lot of trouble if possible.”

Ran huffed a laugh. “Did you forget we're looking for this thing ourselves because it already bypassed the school barrier? But sure, feel free to try.”

Madoka pouted a bit. "We excuuuse me for not being able to ward off the entire school!"

"Who warded the school anyway? The previous student council?

"Actually, I'm not sure. Probably the same people that made the door?"

He stepped between aisles, checking corners the way he’d been trained to. Everything felt strangely normal. The tension that had lingered in the air earlier wasn’t here. Just stillness.

“See?” Madoka’s voice carried from behind a shelf. “Told you nothing’s—”

BANG—CRASH!

The ceiling above them shuddered.

Books jumped off the shelves, dust rained down. The sound of something massive tumbling across the upper floor tore through the silence, heavy, chaotic, as if an entire classroom had been upended.

Ran instinctively grabbed Madoka’s arm, pulling her back.

She looked up at the ceiling.

The rumbling stopped as suddenly as it started. The ceiling lights swung slowly, metal creaking.

Ran’s jaw tightened. “That came from the second floor.”

Madoka dusted her sleeves off, smirking to cover the spike of adrenaline. “Well, at least it saved uss the effort of looking for the next poltergeist.”

He didn’t laugh. His gaze lingered on the ceiling. “We’ll finish sweeping this side. Then we regroup.”

Madoka nodded, eyes bright even in the dim light. “Right behind you, captain.”

Then came a a violent bang, from that same floor.

Ran straightened instantly. “That was a door—someone kicked it open.”

Madoka was already moving toward the hallway. “Came from the central hallway. Maybe it was Takaishi?”

They broke into a sprint, flashlights slicing through the dark. Dust still drifted from the ceiling, each step thudding through the empty corridor. When they burst out of the library doors, the air outside felt colder.

Then Madoka froze.
Her light caught something.

It wasn’t the ceiling, or the floor, or anything she could name.
A shape—enormous, crooked, moving faster than any human shape should. It stretched across the far wall, distorted by the flickering emergency light, limbs like tangled ropes, too many joints, too many bends.

Ran only caught it for half a second, but it was enough to twist his stomach. The thing moved along the windows outside the building, the dark following it like ink spilling across paper.

Then—gone.
Vanished around the corner, as if the walls themselves had swallowed it whole.

“...You saw that, right?” Madoka’s voice was tight, breathless.

Ran nodded slowly, jaw set. “Yeah. And I wish I hadn’t.”

Madoka’s pulse was still hammering in her ears when she stopped at the corner of the corridor.
She took a slow breath, then exhaled through her nose.

“...Kuki-chan,” she murmured.

A tall figure drifted into being beside Madoka, robes whispering like leaves in slow wind.

Madoka tilted her head, whispering low: “Hey, Kuki-chan—what the hell was that thing we just saw? You felt it too, right? Nightmare? Spirit? Yokai?”

For a moment, the Idolon didn’t answer. Her mask tilted toward the dark windows where the thing had disappeared.

No. Not a Nightmare. Nor spirit, nor yokai. That much I'm sure of.”

Madoka blinked. “That’s not exactly comforting.”

Kukuri-hime turned to look at her.

"It has no scent of dream, no echo of faith. It does not belong to the Idea World... yet it does not belong here either.”

Ran frowned, lowering his voice. “So… what, some kind of hybrid monster?”

The Idolon turned slightly toward her, the mask’s smile still placid but somehow sharper in the half-light.

Madoka swallowed. “So even you don’t know?”

“I can tell this much,” Kukuri-hime said. “It knew you were here, but you aren't the target.”

Madoka exhaled slowly. “Okay, yeah, that’s officially worse.”

The Idolon’s masked face inclined toward her summoner.

“Be cautious.”

And just like that, Kukuri-hime began to fade, her outline dissolving into drifting embers of white light, leaving the corridor darker than before.

Madoka looked at Ran, her usual easy grin replaced by a slight unease. “Well. When the goddess in my head says she doesn’t know what we’re dealing with, I feel great about our chances.”

Ran’s knuckles tightened around his flashlight. “Then let’s make sure we don’t meet it again until we do.”




Not concealed, not even reversed in her sleeve, no, she held it openly in front of her chest in both hands, like a holy tool.
Her expression was empty.

Her eyes were huge and glassy, two reflective wells that swallowed the thin school lighting.

Her breath made soft, rapid little flutters. Excited. Nervous. Dissociated. Something in between and beyond.

The soles of her indoor shoes slid faintly against the polished floor. Another step. Another. The familiar tightness in her chest every time she walked past an empty classroom alone at night.

She reached the door of the Student Council room.

Her pulse jumped.

Her fingers, nails bitten and cracked, tightened around the screwdriver until her knuckles went blotchy and pale-pink.

She slid the door open slowly.

The familiar scent hit her first.

Shu Jinkō’s scent.

Not really—she knew that—she wasn’t insane (she was)—but to her the room felt like him. A warmth soaked into the chairs, the table, the floor, even the stacks of papers left behind. Something of him was in the room’s air; the idea of him, the presence of him, the worn shadow of his motion through this space.

The chair.

Oh.

Oh—there it was.

Shu’s chair at the head of the table, positioned so casually, so carelessly. The back cushion barely dented. The seat holding the ghost of his weight.

Ai’s throat clicked as she swallowed nothing.

Her breathing grew heavier, more uneven, her chest tightening against the binding cloth beneath her layers. She staggered slightly against the doorframe as dizziness washed over her but she didn’t stop.

She stepped inside like a trespasser in a shrine.

Her steps softened. Her shoulders hunched more.

Her posture folded in on itself like she was trying to become physically smaller, less noticeable to the invisible eyes she was always convinced were watching.

But her gaze stayed locked on the chair.

Her purpose.

Her prize.

Ai crouched beside it.

Her thighs pressed together, her knees trembling under her long skirt. Her hair fell like a curtain around her face as she leaned in, trembling fingers tracing the wood of the seat.

There.

She raised the screwdriver.

Her breath hitched, a small soft wheeze escaping her lips.

“This… this is fine,” she whispered to herself, almost too softly to hear. “Just the seat. I’m not stealing… anything important. He won’t… he won’t miss this. I’ll take care of it. I’ll take such good care of it…”

Her voice trembled in that distinct Ai way, equal parts devotion and impending collapse.

She slid the screwdriver under the seat, wedging it into the frame.

Sweat gathered at the corner of her collarbone.

Her hands shook with that uniquely Ai mix of self-loathing and ecstasy.

A screw loosened. A tiny groan of wood. Progress.

Ai’s pupils dilated.

“Almost… almost…” she whispered, tears of adrenaline stinging her eyes.

The last screw popped free.

Her shoulders slumped with overwhelming relief as she braced herself to pry off the entire seat—

—when—

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Ai froze. Her entire body locked stiff, like a cornered animal. Her breath halted mid-chest. Her palms began to sweat against the screwdriver.

A second creak.

Someone was coming. Her body moved long before her mind caught up.

She slid under the long meeting table, pressing herself into the shadowed space between chair legs and the underside of the wood. Her back hit the metal bar beneath it.

Her breathing stopped.

Not slowed—

Stopped.

Her entire diaphragm locked in place like a hunted animal trying to appear dead.

The door slid open.

Footsteps.

The steps were too controlled, too quiet in shoes that made no sound on tile.

Ai allowed herself one tiny inhale and then forced stillness again.

From her hiding place she saw black pants, a black coat, the hem brushing the floor. Gloves. A face mask. A hood. The kind of figure that belonged breaking into an office at midnight in some crime drama.

The figure seemingly didn’t notice the chair with the partially unscrewed seat.

Didn’t notice Ai trembling under the table.

Instead, he moved straight to the filing cabinet. The cabinet drawer slid open with a soft metallic glide.

A small flashlight clicked on.

The man rifled through the files, olders thudding lightly against one another. Ai could picture it with frightening clarity, she knew the sound intimately. Too intimately.

Because she’d done this.

She’d done exactly this.

She’d snuck in before. She’d gone through these same drawers, in this same dead silence, searching for Shu Jinkō’s student file. She knew the order, the weight of each folder, the tiny tears in certain labels.

And now—
Now she recognized every sound the intruder made.

He passed Enomoto.
He passed Fujiwara.
He passed Hamaguchi.

He stopped.

A faint shift of paper.

The flashlight hit a specific file.

Ai’s eyes widened.

She could tell by sound alone—by the placement alone—which one he’d opened.

She knew the rustle of that folder’s heavier cardstock cover. She knew the slight scrape the tab made from being bent once by accident. She knew the fullness of the pages inside, full of notes, full of incidents.

Ai’s breath stopped.

Not paused.

Stopped.

Her pupils constricted to pinpoints and her vision tunneled around the silhouette at the filing cabinet. Her mind, barely a mind at all when her obsession snapped—filled with one single, total, obliterating truth:

He is touching Shu Jinkō’s file. He is looking at Shu Jinkō’s information. He is targeting Shu Jinkō.

Everything else vanished.

All of it burned away in the instant her brain made that connection.

Her body moved before thought caught up.

a lunge, a sudden, savage, predatory explosion of movement. Like a wild animal fired from a trap.

The intruder barely registered the sound, the hissing inhale, the scrape of Ai’s shoes on the tile, before she slammed into him with full momentum.

A grunt cracked out of him as his back struck the filing cabinet.

His flashlight clattered to the floor.

His hand shot up instinctively to shield his chest—

A mistake.

Because Ai was not aiming for his chest.

S T A B

The screwdriver punched clean through the glove, through flesh, and halfway into the intruder’s palm with a wet, sickening sound.

The man didn’t scream.

He only sucked in a sharp, pained breath through his teeth, a sign of training, discipline, or plain stubbornness. Ai didn’t care. She only felt the vibration of bone and tendon through the handle of the screwdriver and felt a perverse relief bloom in her chest.

She hissed, an animal sound, eyes wide, lips peeled back, hair falling forward like a curtain.

The intruder tried to wrench his hand away.

Ai didn’t let him.

She planted a knee on his thigh and twisted the screwdriver. The man’s masked face spasmed.

She leaned in, whispering, voice low, quivering, euphoric. “…don’t… touch… his things.”

He tried to elbow her, weakly, out of shock.

She caught his arm. Bit into the fabric of his sleeve like a rabid creature. Her teeth tore through cloth.

The intruder panicked.

The man twisted, slamming his shoulder into her, and breaking out of her grip with sheer adrenaline. He bolted for the window, Ai grabbed the back of his coat, he tears free, sacrificing the cloth.

Ai’s empty hand snaps after him like a claw.

Ai sprinted back down the hallway with a gait that barely counted as humanhalf-running, half-lurching, hunched forward like something feral.

Glass shatters.

The intruder crashed through the window, hitting the thick branches of the old cedar tree outside, using it to redirect momentum, droping to the ground, staggering and taking off running.

It wasn't graceful, nor particularly athletic.

Nut there was efficiency in his choice, almost as if it had been a rehearsed escape route.

Ai leapt onto the broken windowsill, cutting her hands on glass without even flinching. She inhaled sharply through her teeth.

Her breath rasped.
Her fingers twitched.
Her pupils were blown wide.

She didn’t even register the blood streak she was leaving behind from her cut palms, just the smell burning in her sinuses.

Ai wiped her hand against her skirt smearing rusty red across the dark fabric and stepped back into the hallway, eyes glazed and fixed ahead.

Cigarette smoke.
Cheap brand. Dry. Bitter. Exactly the kind she found on the floor of that abandoned building.

“…I found you.”




The east wing was quiet, eerily so, but compared to the rest of the building, it felt almost mundane. Their footsteps echoed down the hallway, past faded posters and dusty trophy cases.

Sayaka swung her flashlight idly, humming a tune under her breath. “You know,” she said, glancing over at Yae, “this is actually kinda nice. Just the two of us, empty school, little ghost adventure. Feels like something out of a TV special.”

Yae gave a small huff, arms folded under her coat. “You have a very low bar for ‘nice.’”

Sayaka grinned. “Hey, it's an adventure! We get to wander around the school at night, hunting ghosts no less.”

The detective didn’t respond immediately. She was scanning the lockers as they walked.

Sayaka, on the other hand, couldn’t stand the silence for long.

“So, Yae,” she started, stretching her arms behind her head, “how’d you end up in all this student council ghost-busting stuff? You don’t really strike me as the team-player type. you don't even show up for group training!”

“Someone has to keep the President from turning every crisis into a public-relations stunt.”

Sayaka laughed. "I see, how curious, he's the only person who Yae Zennami would actually put in the effort for.”

Yae blinked, her flashlight dipping slightly. “…Excuse me?”

“You know, Shu Jinkō.” Sayaka’s grin widened. “You’re always helping him. Covering for him. Rolling your eyes when he does something dumb but still following along. That’s not just ‘professional concern,’ Yae-chan. I wonder, what made you fall for him? There's lots of competition so you better watch out...! ”

Yae’s cheeks colored just enough to be visible even in the dim light. “You’re imagining things. I work with him. He’s... That’s all.”

Sayaka leaned in playfully. “Ohhh, the ace detective’s flustered~! You can’t lie your way out of that one, Yae-chan!”

Yae sighed, turning away as if the wall suddenly demanded investigation. “You’re insufferable.”

Sayaka giggled, half-skipping to keep pace with her. “Nah, I just have good instincts. You’re supposed to be the one with the super insight and all, but you’re terrible at hiding when it comes to him. Like, if someone was asked who you like, they’d need less than ten seconds to guess.”

Yae finally looked at her, narrowing her eyes. “You think deduction is the same as gossip.”

Sayaka smirked. “The girl that can unearth any secret having trouble to keep their own hidden, how cute.”

That shut Yae up for a full three seconds. The flashlight trembled slightly in her hand before she regained composure. “Focus on the task. We’re supposed to be documenting anomalies, not—”

“Not talking about your crush?”

“Not—” Yae stopped mid-sentence, rubbing her temple. “You’re worse than Madoka.”

Sayaka laughed so hard she had to lean on the wall. “Oh, man, you are blushing! I didn’t even know that was possible!”

Yae tried to maintain her signature smug calm, but the slight pink on her cheeks betrayed her. “You’re imagining things again. Must be your imagination running wild because this place is getting to you.”

Sayaka waggled her eyebrows. “Sure, sure, blame it on the ghosts.”

The tapping faded, leaving only the hum of the old fluorescent lights above. The mood slowly lightened again, and Sayaka, trying to push the tension away, smirked.

“So, you never answered,” she said, swinging her flashlight lazily. “What made you start liking him?”

Yae didn’t even flinch this time. “I didn’t say I liked him.”

“Uh-huh.” Sayaka tilted her head, grin widening. “You just blush whenever he calls you by name, right? Totally professional reaction.”

Yae’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. “You’re awfully confident for someone deflecting from her own crush.”

Sayaka blinked. “Huh?”

“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” Yae raised her flashlight like a pointer. “I’ve seen the way you look at him during training. That little spark in your eye every time he asks you for advice?”

Sayaka sputtered, color rising in her cheeks. “Wha—no, it’s not! I just—he’s… he’s cool, okay?”

“Mm.” Yae leaned back against the wall, smugness fully returned. “So it is a matter of looks, then.”

Sayaka pointed at her, flustered. “You—! You totally turned that around on me!”

“That’s called counter-interrogation,” Yae said smoothly. “You should study the technique. It’s very useful when you’re the one under questioning.”

Sayaka puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms. “Unbelievable.”

“How's that for super insight?” Yae replied, deadpan.

Sayaka groaned, rubbing her forehead, then chuckled. “You’re trying so hard to avoid admitting it though. It's pretty cute though.”

“I have nothing to admit. Compliment accepted though.”

The two stood there for a momen, staring each other down. Then Sayaka laughed first.

“Fine, fine,” she said, shaking her head. “How about we call it even? I don’t tell anyone about you, and you don’t pry about me.”

Yae pushed off the wall, smirking. “Deal. For now.”

“For now?”

“Of course.” Yae’s tone was teasing, but her eyes glinted. “Anyone who is willing to gossip about others must be ready to endure being gossiped about in return.”

Sayaka gave her a mock glare. “If you start talking about it around school, I’m decking you.”

“I’ll risk it.”

The sudden whistle of air was the only warning.

Yae’s eyes widened, and before she could react, Sayaka slammed into her shoulder-first, shoving her hard to the side just in time for a table to scream through the air where they had been standing. The thing spun like a sawblade, the edges glinting in the thin flashlight beam, and would’ve crushed them both if Sayaka hadn’t twisted mid-fall and kicked it mid-spin.

The impact cracked through the corridor like a gunshot. Wood splintered, metal legs bent out of shape, and the mangled table slammed against the ceiling before crashing to the floor in a spray of debris.

Sayaka landed on her feet, breath ragged, flashlight swinging wildly. “Okay,” she said between gasps, “so love talk angers ghosts.”

Ahead of them, the hallway was wrong. The light from their flashlights didn’t reach the far wall, it just stopped, swallowed by something like smoke but thicker, hungrier.

At first, it was just a vague silhouette pressing against the dark, but the longer they looked, the more it resolved into something nearly human. A face surfaced from the black like a drowned body breaking the surface, whatever features it might have had obscured by the shadows. Then came a limb, impossibly thin, as if reaching from inside the darkness itself.

“Run,” Yae said flatly.

Sayaka didn’t argue. They bolted.

Behind them, the air erupted into chaos. Tables, chairs, even chalkboards launched from classrooms, screaming through the hall with supernatural speed. Sayaka spun mid-stride, batting away a flying chair with her forearm and kicking another in half, the impacts echoing through the hall like war drums.

Yae barely ducked under an overturned desk as it exploded into splinters against the wall. “You’re way too into this!” she yelled.

“Not really!” Sayaka shouted back, vaulting over another chair. “I'm just going by instinct!

A blackboard ripped from its frame and came skidding toward them like a guillotine. Sayaka grabbed Yae’s hand and jumped, pulling her through a doorway as the board slammed against the wall behind them, shaking the glass panels loose.

Inside the classroom, they tumbled to the floor. Sayaka immediately pressed her back against the door, panting.

The hallway outside was silent again.

Yae’s pulse thundered in her ears. She looked at Sayaka—shirt ripped, sweat sticking her bangs to her forehead, a wild grin still plastered on her face.

“You,” Yae managed between breaths, “are insane.”

Sayaka grinned wider. “And alive.”

Something scratched at the other side of the door, slow, testing, like fingernails against wood.

Then silence again.

Yae mouthed without sound: What the hell was that?




Ran barreled around the corner first, Madoka right behind him, flashlight sweeping the walls. Takaishi nearly jumped out of his skin when they appeared.

“Woah—don’t scare us like that!” he whispered harshly.
“We heard the crash upstairs,” Madoka said. “Thought you two were—”

PSSSSHHHHHHHHHH—!!

A deafening hiss detonated above them.

A hidden rope snapped. A metal cylinder dropped from the rafters and then the world disappeared under a storm of white, a choking blizzard of powder bursting straight into Ran and Takaishi’s faces.

“What the—?!” Ran choked, arms instinctively coming up—
But too late.

Takaishi took the brunt of it, the entire blast coating him head-to-toe in chalk-white foam. His hair, shirt, even his eyelashes went pale in an instant. He staggered back like a ghost that had been mugged.

Madoka and Kaoru—bless them—had reacted in perfect unspoken synch: they hid behind them, ducking behind their large backs as if they were bunker walls.

Ran sputtered, coughing up white dust. “WHY—WHY IS THERE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER RIGGED AS A TRAP?!”

Madoka slapped powder off her skirt. “Who even does this?!”

Kaoru wiped her glasses with trembling hands. “This… this makes no sense.”

Takaishi blinked slowly, looking like a frosted statue.
And then his face changed.

“…wait.”

Everyone stared.

“I… think I know who did this,” he said quietly.

Madoka raised an eyebrow. “Who? Because I doubt the monster we saw would need to use guerilla warfare.”

Takaishi rubbed the back of his neck, sending a cloud of white into the air. “Earlier today… I saw the president carrying a fire extinguisher. And rope. And—uh—a lot of weird things.”

Ran froze mid-sneeze. “…You’re telling me Shu rigged this?”

Madoka stared at the dangling rope above them, then at Takaishi, then at the powder covering the floor.

“…Yes,” she said. “Yes, that sounds exactly like something that dummy would do.”

Kaoru sighed, deadpan.

Ran exhaled, long and heavy.

Madoka shoved her hands into her pockets, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Well. At least we know who to blame for not only disappearing but making this way harder for us.”

From down the hall came another distant crash— a table slamming into a wall.

All four stiffened.

Kaoru swallowed. “We… should regroup with the others.”

Ran nodded. “Yeah.”

Madoka had barely managed to brush the last of the extinguisher dust off her sleeves when she launched into the explanation—hands gesturing wildly.

“It wasn’t a yokai. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen with Kukuri-hime. It was— it was like—”

Takaishi swallowed visibly. “What does that even—?”

Before he could finish, a scream echoed up the stairwell:

“MOVE, MOVE, OUT OF THE WAY!”

Everyone spun.

Momo came barreling up the stairs at full sprint—
sweat down her face.
Yaya clinging to her back like a tiny, frantic backpack.

The two practically flew into the hallway, Momo’s shoes skidding on the dusty floor. Behind them, something surged up the stairwell—

Madoka pointed at the stairwell.
Deadpan.
Voice flat.

“That,” she said. “That’s the thing.”

The shape at the bottom of the stairs was impossible to focus on. A black smear across vision, granular like corrupted VHS footage, colors bleeding at its edges. When someone tried to stare straight at it, their eyes slid off, like the mind refused to acknowledge it was there.

The sound accompanying it wasn’t a sound at all.
The closest thing would be something like tinnitus, a metallic whining trying to be a voice.
Not heard through the air but ringing from inside the skull, like your brain trying (and failing) to translate something that should not translate.

Momo slammed her shoulder into a wall and spun around, panting.
“THAT THING—THAT THING—THAT IS NOT A GHOST—WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!”

Yaya, still on her back, frantically shook her head.

Madoka grabbed her temples. “It’s doing something to perception. This shouldn’t even be possible outside a Bleeding Zone—!”

Then came that sound again, that felt like someone dragging a scalpel across the inside of your skull. Everyone clamped their hands over their ears, but it didn’t help; the sound wasn’t in the air.

Its “head” bulged like a pulsating ink stain, the edges glitching like fractals.

Where features should be were voids within voids, layered hollows that didn’t match the silhouette.
Every time someone tried to look directly, their brain rejected it, sending a wave of nausea through their stomach.

Then—

BOOM.

The nearest classroom door imploded, blasting splinters into the hall. Desks hurled outward, sliding like they were pulled by gravity toward the creature.

“GO!!” Madoka screamed.

Everything snapped into motion.

They collided in the dark like panicked animals, Yae and Sayaka rounding the corner at full sprint just as the others barreled down the hall, breathless and pale. Ran nearly plowed straight into Sayaka; she skidded, grabbed his sleeve, and shoved him forward again with a sharp—

“Don’t stop—RUN!”

Madoka didn’t even waste breath explaining.

Yaya was crying but trying not to, her tiny voice breaking:

“Is it behind us—? Is it—?”

“DON’T LOOK BACK!” Momo barked, scooping the kid tighter against her shoulder as she sprinted.

Kaoru risked a glance over her shoulder.

She regretted it instantly.

That sound again, like static, like nails dragged over metal. Something that the ear kept struggling to recognize only because the mind was desperately trying to give it shape.

Madoka’s breath hitched. She nearly tripped. Ran caught her by the arm and pulled her forward.

Chairs and desks were crashing behind them—not thrown but simply appearing midair, hurled by something without hands. A desk slammed into the wall right next to Kaoru’s head, so close she felt the wind peel a strand of hair from her cheek.

Yae breathed out, shallow and shaking:

“…Shit. Shit. Shit—this is not—this is not Idea World physics—”

“YA THINK!?” Momo shouted back.

The Ace Detective's stamina and athletic ability was among the worst of the group, and she was slowly but surely falling behind.

Sayaka grabbed her wrist and pulled her with the others.

“WE ARE NOT DYING IN A SCHOOL HALLWAY!”

They burst into the main stairwell only to see it, impossibly, already reaching the landing BELOW them.

It dripped down the entryway wall like a stain being poured from the ceiling, its limbs unfolding like broken branches, its head swiveling too loosely, too smoothly, as if its neck were made of clay instead of bone.

Its mouth (if it is a mouth) opens—

—and the sound that spills out isn’t a scream.

It’s a chorus of whispering voices, layered on top of each other, all speaking nonsense syllables at once. Not language. Just something close to the most evil intention that their brains can comprehend.

Momo doesn’t hesitate.

She pulls Yaya closer to her shoulder like a soccer bagand and bolts. Takaishi, in blind panic, reaches out and catches Kaoru’s wrist, dragging her with him.

They punch through the side exit, shoving a stuck door until the frame fractures, then spill into the night outside, scrambling, gasping, but free.

The rest aren’t so lucky.

The hallway collapses into shadow behind them, separating them from Ran, Madoka, Sayaka, and Yae.

Something heavy lands the floor behind them, like a meat sack dropped from a height. They don’t look back. They can’t look back. They know, instinctively, that seeing it directly is to invite it into their mind.

“STAIRS—UP!” Sayaka shouts, grabbing Yae’s arm before she can freeze again.

They sprint.

Tables scrape behind them dragged by no hands, no force, just pulled by the vacuum of that something’s approach. Their flashlights flicker violently—each beam thinning, narrowing, as though the dark itself is in a panic

Ran is in the lead this time, barreling up the stairwell two steps at a time.

Madoka stumbles, and Ran yanks her forward by the sleeve once more.

Their pursuer simply slithers upward, its limbs hanging limp as the head swivels 180 degrees. Hair (not hair—strands of shadow?) drags behind it. The fluorescent lights strobe, each flicker revealing a new, impossible shape.

They burst onto the second floor corridor—its windows completely blacked out, as though the night outside has pressed up against the glass, smearing across it like ink. A phenomenon Kaoru and takaishi had already seen.

The creature is faster now.

Its limbs strike the walls, long, spindly, like they’re made of twisted rags dragged through swamp water. Each impact leaves a smear that writhes for a second before peeling itself off and joining the larger mass.

They burst out onto the second-floor landing.

“Left!” Ran orders.

But halfway there, a sudden slam echoes behind them.

Ran and Madoka turn—
Yae and Sayaka are not with them.

The monster has shifted sideways—blocking the narrow landing between the two staircases.

“You two go!” Ran shouts.

Sayaka tries to push through, but the thing expands, stretching like a long shadow cast by a bonfire, limbs too numerous, too slender.
It forces her and Yae upward by pure pressure of wrongness.

“Ran! Madoka!” Sayaka reaches a hand toward them.
Yae pulls her back sharply.

“No time!” Yae snaps, voice steely from terror. “Run—now!”

And Ran, cursing under his breath, drags Madoka in the opposite direction.




The hallway narrows as they climb.

Like the building is warping—layers of the school shifting in subtle, nauseating ways.

Sayaka covers Yae with her body each time another desk or chair comes flying out from a room they pass, propelled by invisible force.
Metal legs scrape sparks across the walls as the furniture slams past.

They reach the top.

The door to the roof is cracked open with a single kick from Sayaka, who pushes Yae through.

Both of them stumble into the cold night air, panting.

Behind them—

That sound.

The monster pours upward through the stairwell—
a writhing blot of black static, limbs emerging and retracting, its face visible only when lightning flashes far off in the sky: a pale, stretched mask with eyes too wide and too soft, as though they could spread across the whole face if it blinked.

Yae and Sayaka back toward the edge of the rooftop.

“There’s nowhere to run,” Yae whispers, voice trembling.

Sayaka steps in front of her, stance widening.

Then—

The monster slams into the doorframe.

The metal buckles inward, bolts snapping, hinges wrenching from the wall.

The rooftop shakes.

Sayaka grabs Yae and leaps sideways—

But the blast of force hits them anyway. A pressure wave punches through them, lifting them from their feet.

Sayaka clutches Yae so tightly her nails dig into Yae’s skin through her sleeve.

The monster’s cursed stretched form peers over the edge above them—
then dissolves into nothing.

For one instant, Sayaka thinks:

This is it.

Then a window on the last floor slams open.

And a hand—

grabs Sayaka by the forearm with perfect timing, like the universe itself nudged the moment into place.

Her fall jerks to a halt.
Yae almost slips free, but Sayaka snarls and tightens her grip, refusing to let go.

And the person at the other end winces, bracing himself with his entire body against the window frame.

His arm trembles under the weight.

He’s bleeding.

His shirt is torn, soaked red at the shoulder. There’s a burn mark across his forehead.
A bruise blooms beneath one eye.

There’s even a cut on his lip still wet with blood.

But he looks up at them—

and smiles.

Shu Jinkō.

The curtain gives a horrible rrrip.

“Shu,” Yae says, breathless, “the curtain—!”

“I know,” Shu says.

He leans out the window more, taking on more of their weight despite the pain dragging across his body.

Shu’s teeth clench.
His injured arm trembles violently.

But he doesn’t let go.

“I’ve got you,” he says, even as the fabric frays strand by strand.
“I’ve got you. Just—please—hang on.”

Sayaka yanks Yae upward before momentum from the ripping curtain drags them down again.

Shu's body jolts, his ribs smashing into the window frame, but he refuses to let go.

Shu groans, blood dripping from his wounds, and forces out a breathless grin:

“You look like you’re having… a really rough night too.”

Another hook rips free of the wall.

The curtain slips another inch.

Shu’s arm trembles violently under the weight of both girls.

The curtain rips more.

Not cleanly. Not all at once.

It gives in jagged, uneven bursts and the three of them drop as one.

Shu at the top, fist knotted around the torn strip of curtain. Sayaka clinging to his arm. Yae holding desperately onto Sayaka.

The three of them plunge.

Air roars past their ears, the night sky becomes a spinning blur.

Shu’s teeth clench as the force nearly dislocates his shoulder.
Sayaka’s arm burns like it’s being ripped in half.
Yae’s breath is a thin, strangled thread in her throat.

For a moment — the fall feels endless.

Then—

A hand bursts out of a lit window beneath them.

A single hand. Large. Calloused.

Ran Nejima grabs the trailing end of the curtain.

The force whips his entire body against the iron window frame with a heavy THUD.

His ribs fold around the edge, his breath is torn out in one violent choke and his shoulder nearly tears out of its socket instantly.

But he holds.

The curtain jerks taut. Shu, Sayaka, and Yae swing wildly, slamming into the wall, dangling over the courtyard like a grotesque mobile.

Ran tries to inhale but nothing comes.

His fingers spasm from the pain but they don’t release.

Ran snarls the words through gritted teeth:

“JUST—DON’T—LET—GO—!!”

He’s sliding.
The skin of his hands burns as the curtain fibers slip bit by bit.

Yae looks up, sees his arms trembling violently, his teeth baring in pure agony.

The curtain unravels one thread at a time.

They’re going to fall again.

Madoka reaches the window’s edge inside the classroom, breathless, sweating, face pale with terror as she takes in the scene.

Ran half outside, one arm hooked around the frame, the other barely holding onto the curtain.

Shu, Sayaka, and Yae suspended in empty space.

Something in her snaps.

She slams her palms down on the windowsill and shouts so loud the glass hums:

“RAN—!! LISTEN TO ME!! YOU CAN DO THIS!!”

Ran’s vision blurs.
The world tilts.

Madoka doesn’t stop.

“RAN NEJIMA!! PULL THEM UP!! DON’T YOU DARE THINK YOU CAN’T!!”

Madoka’s hair lifts from the energy.

“YOU’VE GOT ONE JOB, RAN!! JUST ONE!!
SO DO IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT—
AND BRING THEM BACK!!!”

Something lights in Ran’s eyes.
Just barely.

His muscles spasm, then coil like drawn cables.

He roars, a full-bodied, primal, bone-cracking sound —
and he pulls.

His shoulder fully dislocates with a wet, horrible snap.
His ribs grind audibly against the sill.
His elbow buckles inward like it might fold the wrong way.

But the curtain rises.

Slowly.
Painfully.
Impossibly.

Sayaka reaches the sill first, grabbing the edge with her free hand and hauling herself up with a desperate grunt.

She clutches the frame and immediately pulls Yae with her, both girls collapsing inside the room, gasping, shaking, covered in dust and cold sweat.

The instant their weight leaves the curtain, Ran’s body gives out and he collapses inward, crashing onto the floor, arm limp, shoulder grotesquely out of place.

Shu lands last, rolling across the ground, clutching his shoulder with a hiss of pain.

Silence fills the room for three long seconds.

Then Yae, still on hands and knees, whispering through her breath:

“…we’re alive.”

Sayaka nods, head bowed, trembling all over.

Shu, sitting against the wall, finally says:

“Thank you!”

Ran tries to answer, but only a breathless wheeze comes out.

Madoka wipes her eyes angrily.

“Don’t joke! You owe everyone an explanation!!”

Sayaka looks at her in awe.

Yae, still pale, nods in agreement.




After Momo, Yaya, Kaoru and Takaishi return, they drag themselves into an empty classroom, Ran groaning, Sayaka and Yae still shaking, Madoka furious and worried Shu exhausted but trying to smile.

Yae is the first to speak.

“…Shu. What the hell was that thing?”

Madoka folds her arms, standing next to the Vice President.
“Kuki-chan said it wasn’t a spirit, or a yokai. And it wasn’t from the Idea World either… so what was it?”

“And that’s probably why even Kaoru could see it.” Yae adds, with perfect poker face.Kaoru nearly chokes, but thinks to herself that was a nice save from Yae.

Everyone turns to Shu.

He sits there, bandage slipping from one arm, hair matted from sweat and the fall, dust all over him… and he looks like someone being asked why the sky is blue. He scratches the back of his neck, sheepish.

“…ah. That.”

Ran, whose shoulder is barely staying in its socket, glares at him like he’ll throw him out the window if he tries to dodge the subject.

“Talk.”

Momo cracks her knuckles. “Yeah, asshole. Start explaining.”

“It’s… fine. I’ll handle it.”

Eight voices explode at once.

“NO.”

He physically flinches back, then holds up both hands like okay, okay, geez.

“You almost died. Again!”

“And you didn’t tell us?!”

“Explain. Properly.”

Shu sighs, shoulders drooping, then laughs a little, embarrassed, as if they’re overreacting.

“…well… I’ve been dealing with that thing since... For as long as I can remember, actually.”

He says it like he’s telling them about seasonal allergies.

Momo’s jaw drops. “You WHAT?”

“It’s always around. I know it’s there even when I don’t look at it. Like… the feeling someone’s behind you, but all the time. Sometimes it gets louder. Sometimes it gets… closer.”

Takaishi feels his stomach knot.
“Closer how?”

Shu thinks. Then answers with almost cheerful bluntness:

“There are nights where it straight-up tries to kill me.”

Every single person stares at him.

Shu continues, unfazed:

“So I fight it off for a bit, and eventually it leaves.” He says it with a light laugh, rubbing the back of his head.

As if this is normal. As if they should’ve known.

“Well, it’s not like I could call anyone. ‘Hey, help me fight the shadow that screams inside your bones’? That’d go great.”

Momo punches him in the thigh, not gently.
“You absolute moron! You should’ve told someone!”

Shu winces.
“Okay, ow— Momo— ow— I’m already bruised—”

Yae leans forward, voice low.

“…Shu. How often?”

He tilts his head, thinking.

“Uh… it used to be every couple of weeks? Sometimes a few nights in a row. Sometimes it disappears for a while. It’s unpredictable.”

The mood in the room shifts, from horror, to confusion, to a slow collective realization that the answer is somehow worse than they expected.

Shu stretches his arms over his head, utterly casual, as if they’re not discussing a cosmic predator trying to erase him from existence.

“Anyway, it’s been a while since it showed up. Actually, ever since I came to Kageoka, it barely bothered me.”

Madoka blinks. “What? Why?”

Shu scratches his cheek.

“Well. That thing only shows up when I’m alone. Kind of?”

Silence.

Ran spoke “…Kind of?”

“Mm… more like… totally alone,” Shu says, waving his hand vaguely. “Like, when there’s no one… living? Or… human? Or… something like that.”

Kaoru stiffens.
What does that even mean?

Shu nods, trying to word it better.

“My old apartment was haunted to hell, right? Always something in the corners. Never really alone-alone. So that thing didn’t show up much back home.”

Everyone stares. Shu continues, cheerful:

“Honestly, I got used to the ghosts a long time ago. You guys saw them, some are harmless. Some get grabby. And that one kept rearranging my shoes — that one was kind of a rascal. It acted up during your visit, remember? Ha ha!”

Yae crosses her arms, incredulous.
“And the school? Why did that thing show up HERE?”

Shu brightens, like he just remembered something trivial.

“Oh, right! Yeah. I’ve been sleeping here since my place burned down.”

Everyone: “WHAT?!”

He stands up, gesturing for them to follow.

They go down the hall, past locked clubrooms and shuttered windows, until Shu stops at a storage closet. He pulls the door open.

Inside:
A sleeping bag rolled out on the floor. A stack of instant noodles. A toothbrush in a cup. A tiny alarm clock. An extra uniform hanging on a hook.

The room feels like the saddest, most determined bachelor camp on earth.

Shu smiles proudly.

“See? Home sweet home.”

Takaishi’s voice cracks. “Shu… president… you— you’ve been sleeping in a storage closet?”

Shu nods like it’s obvious.

“Well yeah. My apartment burned down so I needed somewhere to crash, and I didn’t want to bother anyone. This place is clean, no ghosts, and I can use the school showers in the morning.”

Kaoru pinches the bridge of her nose.
“President. Kaichō. Shu. Please. For the love of sanity. You have to stop doing things like this.”

“…I mean, I thought the barrier around Higan would keep it out too, so there's that.”

Every head snaps toward him.

Yae’s voice is the first to cut through the air, thin and disbelieving.

“…Excuse me?”

“Well… you know. Higan’s got a spiritual perimeter. A repelling field. Keeps spirits and idea bleed from entering. I figured if I slept here, that thing wouldn’t be able to get in. Or at least, it’d have a harder time.”

Madoka’s eyes widen.

“Shu… that barrier keeps out normal things. Normal Yokai. Normal hauntings. Not that.

Sayaka bites her thumb.

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone?!”

Shu blinks, genuinely confused.

“I figured it was manageable! Usually it leaves once I fight it hard enough. So I just—”
He gestures vaguely with his hands.
“—fought. Until it went away.”

They all stare.

Not because the idea is new, but because suddenly all the scattered pieces of the week snap together

Madoka takes a deep breath, trying to keep steady.

“Shu. This isn’t something you ‘just deal with.’ You can’t fight this alone.”

Shu looks genuinely baffled.

“…I can’t,” he finally says. “I can’t just tell other people. I can’t drag others into this.”

Kaoru opens her mouth to protest, but Shu continues.

“You saw what happened tonight. You all almost died. Sayaka and Yae were thrown off a roof because they were near me. Ran tore his chest open catching them—”

He shakes his head.

“—all because that thing was coming for me.”

A beat.

Shu clenches his bandaged hand.

“I can take it. I’ve always taken it. Every time it tries to kill me, I get up. I’ve learned how. I’ve survived it for years.”

His eyes sweep over them, frustrated, protective, desperate.

“But you? You’re not supposed to get hurt because of me.”

Sayaka steps forward first, of course she does, but Shu cuts her off, voice cracking with something dangerously close to anger.

“You almost died.”

Sayaka freezes mid-step.

“I caught you. Somehow. Ran grabbed us. Somehow. Madoka held the whole chain together. Somehow.”
He lifts his eyes, haunted.
“You think that’s normal? You think it’s safe for any of you to rely on ‘somehow’ every night?”

His voice grows stronger, louder.

“I can’t just bring this to your doorsteps. I can’t tell you to put your lives on the line for me.”

He presses a hand to his forehead.

“You all showed up tonight because I wasn’t careful. Because I slept here. I get that.”

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it.

“You think I’m okay with that? You think I can live with anyone getting hurt for my sake?”

Madoka slams her palms on the desk.

“Shu, that’s how friendship works!”

He flinches, just a tiny bit.

“That’s not something you get to refuse.” Madoka says, voice fierce.

Yae steps forward.

“You’re not bringing us into danger, Prez. We’re already in it. Because we care. Because that’s how connections work. You think you’re being noble by keeping this quiet, but all you’re doing is isolating yourself.”

Ran folds his arms, grumbling“You’re acting like we’re made of glass. We’re Awakened too. We’ve fought monsters beside you. We can take it.”

Takaishi, quieter, adds:

“And even if we couldn’t… it wouldn’t matter. We want to be there. That’s what you do for people you care about.”

Shu opens his mouth—then closes it.

He tries again.

“Even if you say that… it doesn’t change the fact that this thing wants me. I am the target. It goes for whoever’s near me. If I tell you, if I let you stay close, then I’m just—”
He struggles for the wording, fists clenching.
“—handing you over to it.”

Sayaka slams her hands on her hips.

“NOPE. TOO BAD. YOU’VE BEEN GETTING HAUNTED BY A COSMIC ABOMINATION BECAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE BOTHERING PEOPLE. WE ARE INTERVENING.”

Shu blinks.
“Eh? That’s— I don’t—”




The coat lay across the desk she had dragged toward the corner.
It was heavy, a rough black fabric reeking of cold night air, cheap cologne, and the metallic scent of her own blood dried into its fibers.

It was the coat of the man she had stabbed.

Ai held it by the sleeve, fingertips trembling, partly from adrenaline, partly from the faint, thrilling disgust and hate against someone that, very likely, was the person who had dared hit Shu.

Her grip tightened until her knuckles went white.
The smell on the cuff — tobacco, stale and sharp — matched perfectly with the scent she remembered from that ruined building, the one Shu had been dragged into.
The one where he had been hurt.

Her heartbeat ticked faster.
She felt her nails dig crescents into her own palm.

This was him.
This was the one who dared.

Ai got ready, the coat pooled on the desk in front of her like a corpse she was preparing for autopsy.
She dipped both hands into the pockets.

A soft rattle.

She pulled out two flattened cigarette cartons.
Both were the same cheap brand, the kind sold at discount kiosks and convenience stores, with a bitter, chemical odor that seemed to cling to the cardboard.

Ai held them to her nose.

Her lashes fluttered.
Yes.
Exactly the same as the scent she had caught in that abandoned building.

She set them aside lining them up perfectly.

Next, cold metal. A cheap plastic lighter, the kind you buy five for cheap when your main one breaks. The plastic was scratched, the flint half worn down.

Several gas station receipts, crumpled from the friction of quick movement. Ai smoothed each one flat against the desk, reading line by line.

The adresses were clustered around a small, run-down area southeast of the city.

And some train station tickets. These were the biggest clue.

Three tickets. All recent. All from the same station.

Ai spread them along the desk like tarot cards next to the other things before getting up and standing before the student files.

The silver file cabinet clicked open under Ai’s hands.
Her fingers were stiff, part excitement, part that cold-burning dread she got whenever her obsession sharpened into something useful.

She slid drawer after drawer open, skimming past the beige folders she already knew by heart. She wasn’t looking for Shu’s for once.

She was looking for someone who had dared plot against Shu.

Ai looked for addresses, those in the area of the two gas stations.
She flipped pages with quick, violent movements, cross-referencing every detail she had found.

A list began to form in her mind.

Names.
Addresses.
Students who lived near that station. Students whose commute aligned with the receipts.

She found him in the “TA–TO” section.

A thick file, dog-eared and too heavy for a regular student, but about right for a troublemaker.

Tachibana Kentaro.

Ai inhaled sharply.

The page practically crawled with red ink:

  • Fighting on school grounds
  • Detention
  • Smoking violations
  • Skipping class for weeks
  • Violence towards fellow students

And at the top, his address. Ai whispered it aloud.

It was a street she knew. Right between the two gas stations on the receipts.
One block from the train station on the tickets.

Her stomach twisted in a delighted, poisonous knot.

Ai traced the ink on his picture with one fingertip, a mugshot-like school photo, Kentaro glaring at the camera like he was daring it to fight him.

She smiled.




The alley was empty except for the drip of a gutter and the sound of someone breathing too steadily to be injured.

He pulled the mask off his face with his good hand. The cold night air hit his skin, but it didn’t change his expression.

Itsurō stepped into the faint light of a convenience store sign.

Blood ran down his wrist. Ai’s screwdriver stuck straight out of the center of his palm, handle trembling with every pulse.
She’d driven it through with manic intent.

Itsurō examined it the way a jeweler examines a cracked gemstone, flat eyes, tilting the hand slightly and rotating the wrist.

Like he was appraising a defective tool.

“…Fuck,” he murmured to himself.

He flexed his fingers.
They twitched once, twice, stubbornly functional despite the metal skewering them.

His pain tolerance wasn't remarkable at all, yet he did not wince. He did not curse.

He simply breathed out through his nose, disappointed the way a man might be at a stain on his shirt.

Itsurō tugged lightly at the screwdriver. Flexed his fingers again.

Winced, not just from pain, but irritation.

“Tch… annoying.”

Blood welled up.

He stopped tugging

“Would tear muscle on the way out. Messy.” He sighed. “Well, the plan is set at least.”

He turned and began walking deeper into the alley. Behind him, drops of blood dotted the ground in a perfect, evenly spaced trail.


BONUS SCENE —
The Onguuchi Household

Madoka kneels beside Shu at the low chabudai

Across from them sit her parents Mr. and Mrs. Onguuchi.

Tea steams quietly between them.

“We heard from Madoka about your unfortunate situation, Jinkō-kun. The fire… that must have been frightening.”

Shu shook his head politely.
“It’s alright, nobody got hurt, and that's what matters.”

Mr. Onguuchi nodded, steepling his fingers.
“You’ve lost your home. That is no small matter. Our house has spare rooms, and you are welcome to stay for as long as you need.”

Madoka straightened a little as if relieved they were approaching this calmly.

Shu bowed deeply.

“Thank you… truly. Being able to spend the night with Madoka is a lifesaver.”

Madoka froze.

Mrs. Onguuchi’s smile stiffened. Mr. Onguuchi’s eyebrow lifted by an imperceptible fraction.

Shu sat there, oblivious, radiating grateful innocence.

“Let us… make things absolutely clear. You are aware both of you will sleep in separate rooms, right?”

“Oh yeah, don't worry. I mean, I'm fine already since you both would be home at night. Either of you being there works just as well!”

A silence followed that was so dense it felt like gravity increased.

Mrs. Onguuchi blinked once — the elegant blink of a woman processing catastrophic implications beneath a flawless facade.

Mr. Onguuchi stared at Shu with an expression that hovered somewhere between shock, amusement, and I will commit a crime in about five seconds.

Madoka mouthed, PLEASE STOP TALKING.

Edit

Pub: 10 Nov 2025 16:42 UTC

Edit: 17 Nov 2025 23:37 UTC

Views: 147