Pro stopped by a dead end and gripped her knees panting, catching her breath after hauling quick and tail. Running wasn't her strong suit at all. After looking around she noticed that they had accidentally split up in the mist of their situation, getting lost in the deep forest leaves. She called for her friends but only found flowers and foliage to keep company and cursed at them for getting her lost. The bushes rustled startling her and fear started to ooze on her shoulders. Despairing thoughts like getting killed alone or finding her friends dead, she had to shake off the false imaginations and keep pressing forward. In the corner of her eye she swore she saw someone there but ought not to look fearing what she might encounter--

Her pace quickened, a slow walk to a quick trot, then a light jog, then a sprint, all while whatever she saw when she peeked behind was chasing her, matching her speed. She reached a thick tree and had no choice but to face it, readying her sword she turned around and– -

"W-w-waaaaaait!" A masked girl raised her hands defensively waving them frantically pleading. "Don't kill me, I've been trying to get in contact with you for a while now!"

By her attire, a black sailor uniform not at all related to Nokken or any other school's, Pro didn't recognize the girl at all. Maybe she was a shadow born of someone in the real world, thought Pro; opening her mouth about to ask but was quickly cut off.

"It seems you and your friends are having trouble here. That's unfortunate." The masked girl spoke. "But you're in luck. Do you know about tokusatsu shows?"

Possibly the weirdest question to ask at a time like this but to answer, Pro had heard about tokusatsu shows partially the most popular one as one now, Rider's Cue. This mysterious girl happened to wear the main rider's mask. The show Rider's Cue was something Pro only saw bits and pieces of, only watching the first episode with Kyokai and Gachi when she was young and never thought to watch the full thing.

"You should watch it sometime, it's really worth your time. The main character is a struggling film director needing to fight tooth and nail against the film industry which has been plagued by low effort animated films and poor rehashes of classics. He uproots the shadows messing with the industry behind the scenes to help people make the ultimate kino, that means film or cinema in german."

This sounded really interesting.

"Flashy action and explosions with masked superheroes taking down the enemy. Using belts as their power." The masked girl paused to think, tapping her chin first then putting her arms behind her back. "...I don't have belts for you to use, but what I do have is..!"

From behind she pulled out a plain katana and disk chakram. "Your friends are really clumsy. hehehee!"The masked girl had a laugh similar to Cynthia's and equally as creepy. "But before I give these to you. You must show me your best Henshin. It's the word those riders use once they transform."

Pro stood up and took a step back. Slowly raising her right hand, trembling with power. Pro swiftly raised it high, back and lastly forward. "Henshin!" She shouted.

The masked girl clapped and hopped up and down exclaiming "Very amazing! I'll be sure to remember that performance fondly." She tossed the chakram and Katana to Pro and she nearly fell catching the sharp weapons "Go and slay those beasts Pro-chan!"

"Hey wait!" Pro blinked and the girl was gone like the wind. "Damnnit." Pro muttered, unable to get the answer she wanted.

A strange conversation but this labyrinth she was in made the strange normal. She hurried off retracing her steps in search of her friends, not having to move far as she heard a distant scream, obviously from Gachi and Kyokai. Pro ran in the direction of the sound and her assumption was correct. Gachi, Kyokai and Cynthia were cornered by a few killer rabbits slowly approaching them. Pro was blocked off from them so there was only one option--

She threw the katana and Chakram as high as she hoped they would catch the weapons and they did! Kyokai with a chakram and Gachi with a katana, the battle is on now!

"About time. You idiots better know how to fight properly." Cynthia commented.

"Now that we know these monsters mean business, we have nothing to worry about when we cut them down!" Gachi sprang forward and sword down. The impact caused the rabbits to scatter back and allowed Kyokai to snipe one off with his chakram. The disc split the rabbit in two and like a boomerang it returned to his hand. The rabbit dissolved into a black dust that soon faded which brought some relief to Pro now knowing they weren’t killing real creatures.

For Gachi's next attack, she sheathed her sword then unleashed a wide slash with a trail of thunder first following the blade and leaving it to scatter like a wave on the ground. The spreading yellow thunder finished off the remaining 2 killer rabbits and afterwards she sheathed her sword like a cool samurai and winked. "See that Cynthia? We're pretty capable don't you think?"

"I’m unimpressed but you managed to not die, so good job I guess." Cynthia replied rather uninterested. "So about your magic. Do you use mana, or have magic circuits? How do you operate so we know whether to conserve your magic or not."

Pro shrugged, "I don’t know. I never had a chance to use my magic."

"Then we’ll have to find that out while we’re here. The full extent of all your abilities. You too Gachi, Kyokai."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Gachi raised her katana high. "Sweet! I’ll do my best!"

"My magic doesn't work the same way theirs do so don’t write me off as useless. I’m sure my magic can support in some way.” Kyokai rubbed his head nervously.

"You’re all just pawns to me regardless of skills. Now that we're properly armed. Let's continue to find a way into the school." Cynthia then looked around at their surroundings. They were lost in the forest, unable to see the school anywhere nearby due to the dense tree leaves. Splitting up caused this predicament. Cynthia pointed in a random direction and decided to just go that way until they found something.

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The searching was quite long. They encountered a few enemies on the path, black rabbits, knight's with shadowy auras that leaked out the open areas of their armor and sometimes a larger rabbit. Now they found themselves in the heat of battle against one of these foes. Gachi blocked a heavy slash that made her skid back from the recoil. “Take em Pro!” She shouted.

Pro's hand ignited with fire and she threw a medium sized fireball at the shadow knight, igniting it in flames and extinguishing it to ash.

Gachi wiped sweat off her forehead. "Whew. That's the last of them. The school is near I think."

They were in a dense area with trees and overgrown bushes that made the place almost maze-like. But they could see that the large school building was close since the trees were low enough to allow them to see the top of the taller building.

Gachi yawned loudly. "I think we should take a break. I'm feeling really tired after those battles."

“Hmm. I suppose we can continue tomorrow. Though the exit outta here is far." Cynthia said.

Kyokai snapped his fingers. "Worry not! I had my magic program analyze and gather information on this place."

“Program? What- ah nevermind. Did you figure out a way for us to leave?”

Kyokai nodded and raised his finger. In an instant on his command A bunch of purple transparent console command prompts and windows that ran code appeared around Kyokai. This was beyond expert level hacking, this was super hacking reality itself!

"I can create a one time exit to use here. If my code works…"

With a single swipe of his hand, all the windows disappeared and a door of light appeared beside the group. "There."

"Good good." Cynthia walked through the door of light with the others. Reality reshaped itself again and Pro was already starting to get used to her entire being twisted by the fabrics of this mysterious reality bending magic. They found themselves at the school’s roof, outside while the sky was the same grey just as when they left meaning that time barely moved. The time between the 'superdimension' and the real world was skewed meaning that a day there could mean 5 minutes here. For now Pro didn't think too deeply about it and the group hid their weapons under a pile of desks until they found a better way to carry them around.

As for Hinata, they encountered him on the first floor halls alone and pacing left and right contemplating about something they couldn't hear too well--about how it wasn't his fault or something along those lines. An 'ah' escaped his mouth when Pro and Kyokai(carrying Gachi because she passed out) passed him, not even acknowledging his presence. His face automatically grimaced "Tch! Still hanging out in your little club? How can you smile so happily?"

This made them stop in their tracks "You got some spunk ignoring me with the situation you’re in now. I’ll just send some people to beat you up if I need to, or better yet..."

They turned to Hinata unphased by his threats with what they knew now. They had a chance to turn their situation around for the better, to change their lives forever like Luka said. Pro snickered and pointed a finger gun at him "Bet it Hinata! We won’t be expelled anytime soon. Your games end here."

Hinata began to sweat nervously at their sudden confidence. "Yeah right!" He dug in his pocket frantically looking for his phone to show them the pictures again but they didn't need to. Pro flipped her hair back, turning away "Later Hinata. You're lucky I'm only letting you off with a warning today Hahahahaha!"

"Urgh, bitch!"

And they went their separate ways. Pro's laugh was ingrained in Hinata's mind all night.

Meanwhile, separate from Murakumo's ordeals, deep In Shibuya Forest...

Two females wearing cloaks over their matching uniforms and a red feathered hat stopped to inspect the burnt remains of a shadow knight, an enemy that was defeated a long while ago.

"Hoh! Looks like the shadows are attacking each other." The light haired girl exclaimed.

Her partner with navy blue hair kneeled down to get a closer look and touched the charred armor feeling the ounces of magic remaining on it "No. This was done by magic, Strong magic. It's not from one of our knights either."

The light haired girl gasped dramatically and tilted her head and body to the side. "What does it mean? I know the dragons here are of the fire variety but I don't sense any nearby. Think it's related to the dead students we've seen popping up here?"

"Perhaps… but those students were killed by the surrounding monsters, not magic. If my theory about the students from your school being sent here by someone is correct then why would they stay to fight the monsters here? Unless we're dealing with a maniac which is unlikely."

"Unlikely indeed!" The light haired girl repeated in a cheerful tone in contrast to her partner's serious and formal explanation.

She sighed and stood back up. "The killer we're tracking is smart. Using this world to pick off individuals by getting the local monsters to tear them apart, yet it hasn't attracted the attention of any dragons, and that concerns me. The killer may know more about this world than we do."

The light haired girl looked serious for once and closed her eyes, hurt by the lost lives of innocent classmates who had nothing to do with this. There was no hint at what this killer wanted nor a shred of evidence to their identity. Her partner told her to keep an eye out for suspicious activity in her school but she had already been doing that without being told. The two females left the area, their investigation still yet to be completed.