Stage one of Cerys’ plan was in motion. During the trip back home, Cerys filled in the rest of the club as to what was going on and her bones of a plan. Naomi kept to herself hidden within the group, her eyes constantly darting around. She only relaxed once the school gates were back in sight.

The group sits in a small communal area between the mid-tier dorms. Despite Cerys’ explanation, the club still isn’t sure of exactly what she’s got in mind.

“Alright Cer-Bear,” Mari begins with a sweet, but sarcastic tone, “What’s yer mastah plan?”

Cerys is caught off guard. “Cer-Bear?”

“Un, Mari says. “Cer-Bear. It helps me not be so mad when yew do stuff if’n Ah imagine yer a cuddly teddy bear.”

“Right…We’ll just have Naomi sit on this bench and we all take places hiding to watch her.”

Naomi nods slowly, “This is the plan we came up with.”

Mari shakes her head, “Yer both idiots, ya know that?”

“It’ll be fine!” Cerys reassures everyone, “We have a clear numbers advantage, so as soon as anyone tries something on Naomi, we pounce!”

“And how long are we going to do this crap?” Rina asks.

Suzaka nods, “A new episode of my favorite show‘s out today! I can’t miss it!”

Cerys puts her hands on her hips, “We’ll do this until we catch the person doing this! I don’t give a fuck what you want to watch. Just catch it online or something.”

“That’s no fun though...” Suzaka mumbles.

“Anyway,” Cerys returns to her plan, “Let’s get into hiding before we look too suspicious standing around.”

The Paranormal Club reluctantly begins to find locations to stow away. Some find places in nearby trees to disappear into. Others vanish into the spaces between the dorm buildings themselves. Flopsy ushers Kirika off behind a nearby shrub, still wearing the detective getup from earlier. Cerys teleports onto the roof of a nearby dorm to oversee the entire operation.

***

It has been a few hours since they began watching Naomi. Nothing strange has occurred to her, and it’s quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop. She tries to remain unassuming by eating some of the sushi she got from the restaurant or by scrolling through her phone.

Many people in the club have gotten bored themselves, turning to their phones to pass the time.

Cerys teleports down to the bench, bored of her overwatch, “So, you want to call it a night and head back to your dorms?”

Naomi remains silent, continually gazing at something on her phone.

Cerys waves her hand in front of Naomi's face, “Hello?” When that doesn’t work, Cerys tries to grab Naomi’s shoulder but phases through the girl altogether. Naomi glitches out for a second before fading, while cheers coming Roka Arena fade in at the same time.

The club leaves their hiding spots to join Cerys at the bench.

“Ah knew I smelt somethin’ weird!” Mari says jogging up behind the others, “Someone used their power on ‘er!”

Cerys looks at the bench again, “Something illusion based if I had to guess. That would explain why the place was silent too.”

Mari sniffs the air again, “Yer raight. Somethin’s off about this.”

“Couldn’t you have smelt something out right away, Mari?” Yuuri asks.

“Ah should’ve if it was mana based,” Mari says, sniffing for a trail to follow. “Though I can smell something else that should work just as well.”

Kirika and Flopsy take a look at the bench, Flopsy pulling out a magnifying glass and letting Kirika look through it. She shakes her head, finding nothing.

Yuuri’s phone buzzes while the club converses. She answers the call to hear Yuudai on the other side.

“Hey where’s everyone at?” his voice booms through her phone, “They let me into our new dorms so I’m hanging here.”

“We’re outside the mid-tier dorms.” Yuuri answers.

“I’ll be right over!” Yuudai hangs up. It’s not even a full minute before the large boy jogs up to the group.

“Oh, you made it back,” Akina says.

Yuudai looks at the scene. “Why are we looking at this bench?”

“To put it simply, we got played,” Hotaru answers.

“What’s going on exactly?”

Cerys sighs, “We were watching Naomi to make sure nothing else happened to her. At some point, someone must have taken her and put it under some illusion, right under our noses.”

Yuudai goes pale, “W-We need to find her now!”

“And Ah know just where ta go!” Mari points towards the school, “Follow me!”

***

Mari’s nose leads the club on a short trip through the eerily quiet school. They stop outside a classroom door.

“Isn’t this the room with the hole in the ceiling?” Yuuri asks.

Yuudai tries to open the door, “It’s locked!”

“Of course it’s locked.” Akina says, “It was locked the last time we came.”

Rina moves Yuudai aside, “Don’t worry Big Guy, I’ll smash this door like Akina did the closet!”

“Rina wai-” Yuudai says.

Rina punches the door at full force, cutting Yuudai off. Embers fly from the point of contact, a blastwave of heat makes the hallway feel like a sauna. She jumps back, shaking her wrist.

“Fuck that hurts!” She checks her hand for any damage as the hallway’s temperature returns to normal.

Akina watches the injured girl, “What did you expect? It’s a locked door.”

Rina backs up to the wall opposite the door, “It won’t get the best of me…”

Cerys’ eyes widen, “What are you doing?”

“Getting some space to run.”

Cerys teleports away as Rina takes off. The club can only watch as the door to the room opens and Rina goes careening inside followed by a loud crash. They gather around the door to find Cerys at the door and Rina on the floor.

“You bloody idiot!” Cerys yells, “Why do you Americans make everything harder than it has to be!?”

“...Ow…” Rina can only mutter as she is slow to return to her feet.

“Do I have to yell at you in English to get it through your thick skull!?” Cerys continues switching languages.

“Say something next time then!” Rina snaps back in English as she stumbles.

The club files into the room, and Suzaka goes over to help Rina up off the ground.

The room itself looks much like it did the last time they were here. The only difference being that a new closet door has been erected.

Mari sniffs around the room, “Tha trail stops here. Naomi’s gotta be in here.”

“I don’t see her here,” Yuudai looks around the room, “You sure your nose is right Mari?”

Mari looks hurt from being doubted and her ahoge droops.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that! I promise!” Yuudai panics.

Akina walks to the closet, “It shouldn’t be too hard to find her.”

Yuuri tilts her head. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s obvious she’s in the closet, so I’m breaking the door down again.”

“Wait! Flopsy has an idea!” Kirika motions towards her ever-present servant.

Flopsy strolls over to the closet and easily opens the door. He gestures for people to go in.

Cerys rushes in to look. She gives a startled yelp and the rest of the gang rush to her. They see a battered Naomi unconscious and tied to a chair. Blood runs down her face from her scalp.

Cerys tries shaking Naomi awake, “Come on, say something!”

Akina grabs Cerys and shoves her aside, “She looks concussed. You need to give her some space and not shake her like a ragdoll.”

Katsuki checks Naomi’s wrist for a pulse. “She’s still alive you two.” She puts an ear to her chest, “Her breathing’s fine, so she wasn’t strangled or anything. Let’s get her out of the closet and onto something flat.”

Cerys unties Naomi. “Someone big, strong, and stupid carry her out of here!”

“I’ve got it!” Yuudai jogs into the closet. He gingerly picks her up and carries her back into the main room, “Hey wait, I’m not stupid!”

“Put her on the teacher’s desk, but prop her up.” Katsuki reaches into her skirt pockets and pulls out a roll of gauze.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Yuudai places Naomi tenderly on the desk.

Katsuki joins Yuudai at the desk, helping him get the black-haired girl into the proper position. Once Naomi is secured, Katsuki begins dressing her wounds.

“You just carry that on your person?” Akina says, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, if I’m gonna be a blood mage I gotta be prepared to deal with bleeds,” Katsuki says, not taking her attention off of first aid. “And don’t forget, my dad’s a doctor.”

Cerys slams a nearby desk, “Fuck! How did this get past us!?”

“What if they were invisible?” Suzaka asks.

“Like that Tennis Club g-” Rina says.

Kirika cuts Rina off with a hand in her face.“You will not drag Hana’s name through the mud!”

Yuuri steps between them, defusing another potential argument. “This doesn’t make sense. Why just kidnap Naomi and leave her unconscious? It doesn’t accomplish anything…”

“Unless they were coming back to finish her later.” Rina says.

Mari sniffs around the room again. The smell of cherries overwhelms her.

“It’s gotta be our cherry gal,” Mari says, sniffling. “Ah can’t smell anything but cherry.”

Yuuri crosses her arms, “So now we have cherries, a dissolved roof, a bent fence, this room with track equipment, and illusions...”

Mari wanders off, following her nose for a stronger scent. It leads her back to the closet where the hurdles and javelins reek of cherries. Her nose twitches, she smells daisies around the chair Naomi sat in and the light switch in the closet.

Kirie nervously scans the room, “What if the suspect is still here…a-and they’re about to attack us too!”

Yuuri laughs nervously “Stop saying such silly things Kirie.”

Suzaka begins to panic and hides behind a desk, “I-It’s a ghost! A-A ghost goin’ ‘round an’ bashin’ students on tha head!”

Akina claps her hands once, “You three. Calm down now. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Cerys mopes, “I came up with a great plan to help my friend and it backfires in my face somehow! Now she’s lying on a desk with blunt force trauma and we can’t even figure out what happened.”

Akina grabs Cerys by the collar and pulls her close, “And you need to calm down too. This is serious shit and you can’t get in your own head.”

Mari continues to check the light switch in the closet. The more she smells it, the stronger the scent of daisies gets. She can smell a trail of daisies through the room, into the closet and out the door. She pulls her toy wand out and uses it to flip the switch, plunging the classroom into darkness.

Yuuri screams. “It’s the killer! They came back!” Suzaka and Kirie follow suit.

Mari flips back the light back on and pokes her head out of the closet.“Sorry! Ah didn’t think it’d cut out all tha lights!”

Katsuki looks up from her work at Yuuri.

Yuuri tries to play it off, “S-Sorry! I-It just startled me, that’s all!”

Katsuki’s gaze lingers on her friend, before she continues tending to Naomi, “Thankfully, I finished applying gauze to her head before the lights went out.”

Cerys drops to her knees, “Whatever. We were still outsmarted... I should be happy she’s still alive but next time…”

Akina lightly chops Cerys on her head, “You did your best. She’s still alive, meaning we’ll have another chance of catching the perpetrator.”

“She had a better plan than I did! I forced her to do my plan! I put her in this situation!”

“And now you have to find a way to get her out of this.”

Cerys looks up at Akina, but catches Mari exiting the closet out of the corner of her eye, “What’d you find in there Mari?”

Mari scratches her head, “Outside of tha cherries? The rope ‘n the chair smella daisies.” Mari thinks a bit harder, “Like Karen did.”

“Are you suggesting Karen attacked her?” Yuuri asks.

“Ah dunno.” Mari shrugs, “She said tha perfume was given to ‘er by Eriri and fer all we know, they all smella daisies.”

“Instead of trying to pin the blame, we should first figure out how they got her away from us.” Hotaru chimes in. “And we could deduce the rest from there.”

“Well, wha’s Naomi’s power ‘gain?” Suzaka asks in response.

“Let me see…” Hotaru flips through his Studex. “She can fly.”

“We woulda seen her flyin’ away, so she couldn’ta used her power ta leave,” Mari rebukes. “An’ it wouldn’ explain tha illusion we were just seein’.”

Yuudai puts his finger to his chin, “There’s a lot of students here, and we don’t know all their powers yet.” He sighs. “We just narrowed it down to almost everyone in the school!”

Cerys shakes her head. “Stop thinking, it’s not what you’re good at. We already know it’s gotta be someone in the Idol Club. So who in that club do we not know the powers of yet?”

Hotaru looks through the pages. “Seems it’s just Chiya.”

“Then we have our suspect. All we have to do is get her to confess.” Rina punches her palm to emphasize her point.

Naomi stirs awake with a groan, causing everyone to turn back to her. She starts to sit up, looking around at the Paranormal Club.

”Uh… What happened…?”

Cerys jumps to her side.“Nevermind that. We figured it o-”

Katsuki shoves her aside. “Give her some room, Cerys! She’s still recovering from a concussion!”

Cerys growls, “What I was trying to say was that we figured out who’s coming for you. You were kidnapped, tied up, and got clocked in the head until you got knocked out. But that’s all fine because now we know who did it!”

Naomi holds her head “It… Doesn’t feel fine.”

“It was Chiya, Naomi.”

“Huh?” Naomi looks at Cerys surprised. “It couldn’t be. She and I were hanging out, but I remember the attack didn’t happen until I was returning to your dorm.”

“Why wouldn’cha tell us that afore doin’ it!?” Mari yells. “We were worried about yew!”

“I… I knew if I told you you’d come along and I just wanted it to be me and her.”

“Was that worth losin’ brain cells?!” Mari retorts, causing Naomi to sulk.

“You too, Mari. Again, concussion.” Katsuki calls out, continuing to tend to the injured student. “But she’s right. It was too dangerous.”

“We haven’t had many chances to hang out since school started and... I was free, and she was free... we both wanted to get together before the match tonight.”

“You’re lucky you’re still alive to see the match tonight!” Cerys snaps.

“Cerys…” Katsuki glares at Cerys.

“But how did’ja get ‘way from us like that? We were keepin’ a close eye out fer ya, then bam! Yer gone!” Suzaka asks.

“Chiya’s power is illusions, so she probably just made it seem like nothing was out of the ordinary until we were both far gone.”

“I don’t get it. I know she’s your friend, but she’s still in the Idol Club. Why would you go with her alone?” Yuuri asks gently.

“She’s not like the others, she’s so in her own world she barely talks to anyone!" Naomi takes a deep breath. "Eiriri and her are total opposites."

“Alright, alright, calm down.” Katsuki places a hand on Naomi’s arm. “How about you tell us what you remember between splitting up with Chiya and getting attacked, okay?”

“Well, after I left, I was walking back and suddenly, I just... Felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. Then... I woke up with you all huddling around me.”

Katsuki deflates. “You really don’t remember anything? That’s a very bad sign…”

Yuuri scratches her head, “None of this explains the cherries or daisies Mari kept smelling…”

Naomi perks up, “Cherries?”

Mari nods, “Un. Ah smelt them a lot in this room. It seems ta show up every time someone goes aftah yew. Tha daisies’re new, tho.”

Naomi winces as she shifts her body, “Mmm... I do remember Chiya telling me... something about Kotoha wearing a cherry-scented perfume a lot lately. Eriri’s favorite perfume smells like daisies.”

Rina grunts in frustration. “Why are you telling us stuff we already know about Kotoha?”

“I thought Kotoha was innocent!” Yuudai says.

Cerys nods, “She wasn’t lying to me when I talked to her.”

“Then…” Yuuri shakes her head, “Argh! It seems like every Idol is a part of this!”

Mari frowns. “Who says they ain’t?”

“Guys, let’s stop trying to think!” Rina shouts. “We have her with us, and we know it’s an Idol. We can just go over and confront them and figure it out from there!”

Hotaru looks at his watch. “I don’t think that would work, Rina. It’s almost time for their match, so we should probably sleep on it.”

“Fuck that,” Cerys says. “The longer we wait the more chances this bird has of flying away again and never coming back.” She points at Naomi for emphasis.

Yuuri’s eyes flash as a pair of cat ears pop out of her hair, a thin tail following suit from under her skirt. “Nyahoo~ You guys look stuck!”

Naomi and the Paranormal underclassmen stare dumbfounded at the now catgirl Yuuri. Kirka lightly claps at the transformation.

Rina slams her fist into her palm. “She WAS a cat!”

Hotaru rapidly flips through his notes, unsure if this is the same Yuuri or not, “Kotoha’s possession powers do pose a problem, it always allows her to have a perfect alibi and feign ignorance.”

Yuuri smiles and pats Hotaru on the head, “Nyope little guy! She has nyo ill intent!”

Katsuki looks like she’s seen a ghost. She bites her thumb and mumbles something to herself, not looking directly at Yuuri. No one else seems to notice this, however.

“Hay. Bakeneko,” Mari says, drawing Yuuri’s attention, “Whaddya mean ‘no ill intent’?”

Yuuri purrs, “Well when she possessed us, her soul was white as snow and pure as...pure thingies!”

“So uh… cat girl,” Naomi begins, “Kotoha has contributed nothing to this?”

Yuuri shakes her head, “Nyope! Poor girl just likes to eat cherries and sing.”

Yuudai hits a nearby desk with a frustrated yell, “This is so confusing! I don’t even know who’s guilty or who’s innocent anymore!”

“Wouldn’t be a mystery if it was that easy…” Suzaka tries comforting him.

Yuuri yawns and stretches like a cat., “If you guys need more help, get her to invade us again. I could check and see if anything’s changed from last time.”

Cerys shakes her head, “Let’s not do that.”

Yuuri cat smiles, “Fair enyough. I don’t like it when strangers enter my si-” She’s cut off by Katsuki covering her mouth with her hand.

“T-That’s enough, we get it.” Katsuki breathes heavily. “I didn’t think... I thought this would stop once we switched schools…”

Yuuri’s eyes flash again as her cat ears lay back down on her head.

“Welcome back ta tha Near Shore, Yuuri.” Mari says.

“Eh?” Yuuri looks around confused, “What do you mean welcome back?”

Mari gives Katsuki a look. “We’ll explain it latah.”

Naomi tries getting back on track, “So… What now?”

Cerys shrugs, “Dunno. I could try to convince Haruhiko into inviting me back to his room.”

Akina shakes her head, “Let’s just go there now and talk to this Chiya... Then beat up Haruhiko too because I feel like it.”

“They have a competition tonight remember? There’d be no way to talk to them after!”

Kirika perks up. “Well, if they’re not going to be there because of the match… Then perhaps we should be there instead! Because they’ll be too busy with the match! And because we want to gather clues.”

Cerys snaps her fingers. “I never thought I’d say this, but that’s brilliant, Kirika! We have to take this chance to sneak in and narrow down our suspect list.”

Kirika harumphs. “Well if you’re going to insult me, perhaps next time I’ll keep my brilliant plans to myself and we’ll just see how far you get without me!”

“I know I’ve been staying out of the way of this whole conversation, but this kind of thing is where I draw the line,” Saito says disapprovingly. “Do you even know what you’d be looking for in there?”

“What do you think we’d find if we don’t even know what we’re looking for?” Kirie asks.

“Calm down, calm down.” Cerys says, “We could find the attempted murder weapon, they most likely tried to hide it somewhere. We just need to go and find it.”

“And you think they’d be dumb enough to store it in their own dorm room?” Saito sarcastically asks.

Cerys smirks. Yes, I do think they’re that dumb “Nobody’s likely to be in there besides them.”

“Even if they’re not there, the Science Club will report you for trying to break in,” Naomi warns.

“So we’ll just have to distract them too.” Cerys gestures to the club.

“Shouldn’t be too hard with all of us.”

Rina’s hand shoots up, “I call distraction team!”

Kirika’s hand follows, “I call not distraction team,” She grabs Flopsy’s hand and raises it as high as she can, “And so does he.”

Cerys helps Naomi off the desk. “Will you be alright without us?”

“I should be fine.”

Akina stands in front of Naomi, “Before we go, did Chiya send you a message saying she was coming to visit you?”

Naomi gasps, “S-She did!” She fumbles pulling her phone out of her pocket before handing it to Akina, “Please don’t break it.”

“Why would I break it?”

Naomi looks away.

Akina surveys the message exchange and takes a screenshot, using Naomi’s phone to send it to herself, “Now we have proof when we drag Chiya off somewhere private.”

“Good idea, Akina,” Cerys says as she gently guides Naomi to the door. “If we’re going to find anything of use, we better get to the Idol’s dorm before the match is over.”