With their school and dorms destroyed, the club regroups at the gate and observes the pile of rubble. Yuuri quickly turns her head to the underclassman currently being held tightly by Mari. "Are you ok, Kirika? He didn't hurt you did he?" Yuuri checks Kirika for any wounds. The little elf girl shakes her head the best she can within Mari’s grasp.
“He didn’t hurt me, but I am still very tired, Yuuri-senpai…” She responds, her voice sounding even meeker than usual. Yuuri gives Mari a pleading look, Mari through her own tears realizes she is holding Kirika too tightly. She lets her go, letting the purple haired girl stand on her own. She looks like she has more to say, but a silence drapes itself over the club, and she just returns to normal.
Katsuki walks towards Kirika and smiles at her warmly. She reaches down and wraps her arms tightly around Kirika, patting her head as Kirika quietly whimpers into her. The others descend on the two, joining in to make it a true club hug.
Yuuri breaks the hug to clap her hands together. “Hey, now… she’s tired, she probably needs some space, everyone,” she says, causing the others to break the hug slowly. They step back from her, leaving Kirika smiling brightly. “Thank you, everyone.” She says sweetly. “I’m… I’m sorry for-”
Mari puts her finger up to Kirika’s lips. “Don’cha worry ‘bout that.”
“Yes, we know you didn’t mean for this to happen… and it worked out in the end!” Yuuri says. “Now… I think we need to call our parents.”
“Before that, Yuuri… can we talk about a bit of club business over here?” Katsuki says, tugging on Yuuri’s sleeve.
“If it’s quick, I’m really tired…” she says, letting Katsuki lead her away from the others.
"I'm gonna call mom, she might know what to do here."
"Oh, my mom might too, I remember she told me she had a lot of interesting friends when she was in the club."
Katsuki and Yuuri both call their mothers. After they both pick up, they hear the frantic sounds of two teen girls way too close to each other, trying to explain the same thing at the same time in different ways. “Whoa, can one of you two talk at once and not at the same time? We’re even here together so I’ll hang up and let Yuuri talk, ok?” The two girls nod their heads to confirm Aiko’s query, not really thinking about being on the phone.
The two can hear some shuffling before Tsubasa asks, “Can you hear me? What in the world has you two so panicky?”
Yuuri explains to the best of her ability, with Katsuki assisting by adding in the details Yuuri doesn’t know. After a long pause, the two girls hear a loud “What the shit!?” coming from Aiko before hearing Tsubasa try to calm her down. “Yeah mom, shit’s fucked over here, can you help?”
Aiko snaps quickly. “Hey, watch your language!
“You just said it, though. Plus, this is the kind of situation that deserves that kind of language!”
Aiko laughs nervously, then coughs. “Well, fine. I’ll see what I can do to help you all out.” There is a rustling coming from the other end of the line. “Katsuki, you're lucky I don't toss business cards.”
"This was really more up Aiko's alley, but I still remember one or two people that owe me a favor." Tsubasa sighs. “I’m just really glad to hear that you all are safe.”
“Hold tight, I’ll see if I can get a crew together and we’ll be there as soon as possible,” Aiko says while standing up to leave. The girls hear a faint “Aiko! We have to pay first before leaving!” The call abruptly ends as a figure walks up to them.
They look up, seeing a tall man with pointed ears rapidly approaching. Katsuki jolts a little bit. “Not another one.” Her mind turns towards the demons they just faced, with similarly pointed ears.
Before anyone else can further react to the man they all hear “Daddy!” and see Kirika running towards him. She buries herself into his chest. He grunts as she hits him, lightly hugging her back. “Hello, Kirika...” he grunts out.
“Kind of a rude greeting to your poor daughter.” Cerys goads him on. “If my father saw me after a long time and I was kidnapped, he would probably not be a big fat bitch like you.”
He starts to sigh at the abrasive red head, but seizes up. “Did you say kidnapped?” He kneels down and looks Kirika in the eyes, noting they are lacking their normal glow. “What happened here?”
“I went alone with a strange man to a dark room where he used me, but.. I’m okay now! My friends saved me before anything too bad happened!”
He looks completely dumbfounded at her but Mari says from the back, “She was used ta summon a lotta demons by tha principal, who was also a high-rankin’ demon.”
She looks back towards Mari, then back towards her dad. “Yeah, I was used to summon a lot of demons!”
He blinks, then a slight smile creeps onto his face. “You were able to summon a significant amount of demons? I’m…happy.” He ahems. “To hear you’re safe.” He then looks at the other teens, then back at Kirika. “Where are the demons? I wish to see them.”
Kirika looks up, “They all got used as shields for Marchosias then turned to dust. I got some on my clothes and they are dirty now!” She says as she lifts up her arm towards him, showing the smeared ashes against her sleeves.
He shoots up, his eyes narrowing. “Marchosias? He was the one who caused this? And… you all took care of him?”
“Yeah, they made a circle that took him home!” Kirika beams.
Mari says, “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah. We gave him a one way ticket home.”
“Yeah and my mom is coming to take care of the cleanup so this doesn’t make national news!” Katsuki then waves her hands in the air. “We can’t let the veil fall just yet.”
“Your mom is going to handle this?”He looks at the other red head with a questioning look “Who is she?”
“Aiko Kusaka, you probably know her.”
He grimaces. “Yes. I do.” He turns to Kirika. “Come on, we should make haste.”
“Huh, what an odd response to my mom’s name.” Katsuki looks at him with confusion, before she seems to realize who he is. “Hey wait, your name isn’t Kazuo is it?” She asks the leaving man.
Yuuri steps in. “Where are you going? She needs to be looked at by a doctor or something.”
“I’m...going to do just that. She requires special medical attention but, thanks for caring about her.”
The club waves off Kirika as she follows her father away from the school. Yuudai turns to Katsuki once they are far enough away. “Katsuki, what was that about?”
“My mom has mentioned some tall mysterious elf guy before, usually followed by a lot of angry curse words.”
“Do you know why?”
“Nah, she told me it was something years ago. Must have been a huge pain whatever it was.”
Akina turns to Saito. “Do you have any idea what the hell that was all about?”
“Nope,” he says, staring at the blade of his scythe. “I try not to get involved in the bureaucratic stuff here.”
“Silence can be key, I can agree with that.”
“Or you two just don’t want to look stupid.” Yuudai calls out, resting against the fence. “Also, why did I have to carry Kirika?”
“You’re the biggest one here.”
“Hey I’m way bigger than that shrimp, I could carry everyone here.” Raidou flexes his multiple arms. “As a matter of fact, I'm sure you could say I carried everyone in that fight.”
“If you were the one trying to give us victory, the only thing you’d be carrying would be our coffins.” Akina says with a slight smirk.
The banter is interrupted as Yuuri’s phone begins to ring. As soon as she answers, Tsubasa begins speaking with a more serious tone than usual. “Hello Yuuri. So, Aiko and I got a few people to come over to your school to figure out how to spin this. We’ll come pick you guys up, just sit tight for now.”
Yuuri relays this information to the club, and they wait outside the school for their parents to arrive. Before too long, they spot Aiko and Tsubasa walking towards them, both with serious looks on their faces.
Aiko’s the first one to talk. “We contacted some local mages and some of the people we trust regarding powers and the paranormal, they want to talk to you all to get the full story and determine where to go from there.”
Tsubasa adds on, “Just tell them everything you saw happen, they’ll make sure you won’t be bothered by this incident any further than today.”
“Oh, that actually sounds perfect.” Katsuki turns to the rest. “Everyone cool with that?”
“Can we really tell them about demons and all that?” Yuudai asks.
Aiko answers. “They’ve seen those before, it’s sort of run of the mill now.”
“That’s...troublesome.” Saito frowns. “You mean to say this isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened?”
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“And probably not the last. But you guys did great!” Tsubasa smiles. “Anyways, we should go check out the school...or what’s left of it.” She starts through the gate towards the former grounds of Miyafuji High, Aiko and the Paranormal Club following behind.
Shortly after the mothers complete their inspection, a few black vans pull up. Some men and women in hazmat suits run out towards what is left of the school. They rush by the Paranormies, leaving them bewildered before a woman with bottom rimmed glasses approaches them. “So, are you the ones who closed the singularity here? We had heard it was a group of peculiar students.”
Yuuri bows somewhat nervously. “Y-yes, we um… we went into this mysterious portal here and uh… s-saved our friend!”
She adjusts her glasses. “I see. We will need to interrogate your friend when we are done here to get more information about this incident, but for now, give us an account of what happened.”
Mari steps forward. “Too bad gova’ment lady! Kirika’s already gone with her fathah!”
The woman chuckles. “I suppose we do look like government officials from movies. Believe me, miss, we are not the government. To put it simply, we are a select group of individuals with an interest in… the supernatural. So, please, refrain from the negative stigma.” She then changes her posture again. “The Komori family assists us with operations, I assume they will cooperate willingly this time as well. It’s a simple short debriefing, same as you all will get before we let you be on your way. Just as long as you agree to a few terms.”
“Terms?” Katsuki asks. “What, are we going to be under surveillance?”
“No such thing, at least not from us.” She says. “I can’t say the same for any other factions, at least regarding some of you. But that’s besides the point, we need to make sure we’re all on the same page.” She opens a folder and begins to read. “A flash storm hit the Miyafuji Area in the middle of the day. A bolt of lightning hit exposed metal on the side of the school, causing sparks that started a small fire. The fire spread through the school, and due to its age, was enough to cause a foundational failure. Luckily, school was not in session, and thus nobody was harmed. The principal has since been uncontactable due to departing on a religious getaway.” She closes the folder and looks up. “And the public will forget this entirely by the time he could come back.”
“But that’s not what happened at all! We-” Yuudai begins to say before being cut off.
“The public aren’t as aware of demonic activity as you may think, sir. And that is to their benefit.” She fixes her glasses again, her light red eyes looking directly at Yuudai. “So we need to make sure we all agree on the story, unless we want a public panic. And we don’t want anything of the sort, correct?,” she says sternly.
The various club members obediently nod in agreement.
“Good,” the woman smiles, adjusting her stance once more, “Then with that cleared up, you are free to leave. We will contact you all when we are ready to speak with you.”
“You… You never told us who you are or who you work for though?” Yuuri questions the mysterious woman.
“Because as of right now, it is not my business to be telling anyone why we’re here. That’s why you will get contact from us once I have permission to do so.” The spectacled woman says.
Yuuri tries to speak up again, but is stopped by a tug on her sleeve. She turns to see Saito motioning her to just take off with the rest of the group. Yuuri looks back at the woman one more time and nods, “I hope to hear more from you later, Miss.”
The woman smiles and waves the party off.
***
Shortly after, she is approached by some of the men in hazmat suits.
“You sure like to make us wait, Miss Usha.” One of the men tells her.
“Sorry about that, my recruitment job comes first after all,” she tells the men with a wink. “Aside from that, though. How did this singularity break out in the first place? Was there some sort of infernal outbreak or ritual occurring here? We haven’t seen numbers like these in years.”
“Well Miss Usha, it seems that the Komori daughter was lured into a portal leading to the infernal realm. Not much else to it, as there were no signs of sigils or ritual items,” the hazmat suit man informs her.
Lucy clicks her tongue and looks at the destruction, “That shouldn’t be possible… I guess this only confirms our theory. “ Lucy grips at her arm, still staring off into the distance, “The barrier between our worlds is growing weaker and weaker.”
“I’m afraid it is leading up to that fact, Miss Usha,” he says.
“LUUUUUCCCCCYYYYYY!!” A loud, childlike voice gets louder and louder from behind the group. Lucy suddenly feels a bump into her backside.
“Miss Kurosaki, I thought I told you to wait in the car!?” Lucy snaps at the little girl behind her. She can’t be much older than nine. Her outfit is very prim and professional looking despite her age. Her long black hair and puffy pink bow are much more fitting for her youthful energy.
“Yeah but I wanna know about the students!” The little girl complains, “Are we going to expand our roster or not?!”
The second hazmat suited man raises up the handful of manila folders in his right hand, “Actually Miss Usha, that was our next topic. I didn’t think our little principal here would be so eager to hear the news though!”
The little girl smiles, “That’s Miss Kurosaki, to you, mister!”
Lucy chuckles, “Well, I suppose it saves some time if we simply take the profiles off your hands, right?”
The man hands the folders off to the eager child, who takes them with glee before skimming through them. The man smiles before looking back to Lucy, “You know, Miss Usha. These kinds of situations have been increasing in frequency as of late.”
“...What do you mean?” She asks.
“What I’m saying is that this isn’t the first time this month we’ve had our team get called to intercept or clean up demonic activity. The rate of the infernal magic we’ve seen has gotten out of hand, comparable to events this country saw nine years ago.”
“So what you’re saying is…”
“That you and everyone else who assumed it is right. The boundaries are weakening and they’re all coming here to cause trouble or obtain something. Perhaps that Komori girl is one of their many interests.”
Kurosaki points to the elf girl’s photo in the folder, “Kirika Komori?”
The men nod.
Lucy sighs, “Well, thank you for letting us know. We’ll let your crew go back to taking care of business here. We’ve forwarded the cover up story to your director, so please make sure that all the media outlets receive the same story.” She pats Kurosaki on the back, “C’mon Roka, let’s get going.”
“H-Hey, it’s Miss Kuro-- F-Fine.” She pouts and heads off with her coworker. Roka continues to rummage through the profiles that were given to her. “Y’know Lucy, we should probably take all of them as soon as we can. The school is big enough!”
“You’re not wrong, Roka.” Lucy agrees, “As far as I’m concerned, they’re all enrolled into Zonzai High as soon as the new school year starts. Powered or not.”
“Hmmm,” Roka hums, still looking through the folders, “Well if this is what happens because of them, we have an exciting school year coming up~! Hehe~”
Lucy smiles and sighs at her boss’s strange delightment.
“We sure do, don’t we?”
***
Once they return to her side, Tsubasa turns to the worn out group of teens. “So what are you all going to do for the rest of the school year?” They look at each other in confusion before Saito groans.
“We still have to go to school after doing this?”
Tsubasa laughs at his statement but slowly realizes that no one else is laughing with her. She clears her throat and composes herself. “Well of course you have to go to school. The real question is where you’ll go to school. Hmmm?”
Yuudai is the first to speak up. “Well, I guess I can go back to my old school, Miyu isn’t around anymore and that was the whole reason I was here…” Yuudai quickly turns to the others. “Not that I didn’t have a great time here with you all or anything, heh.”
Yuuri brightens up. “Oh, that was in Chiba! Can I tag along too, mom?” She pleads with Tsubasa. Her mother nods, causing Yuuri to cheer.
Katsuki turns to Aiko. “Mom can-”
“Sure thing honey.”
Yuuri and Katsuki exchange a high five, but the cheerful moment is broken up by Aiko suddenly barking orders to her men. A lone cloud enters the sky and a lighting bolt strikes the ground from it. From the impact zone a portal appears, and from the portal a stout Japanese woman, bowed but not broken by age steps out. Raidou is hit with a strong sense of dread once he sees the woman. The long haired woman, bangs streaked with grey, marches through the Paranormal club to Raidou. “Oh hey mom did you dye your hair in the uhh 3 hours I was-” Raidou is cut off by her stepping on his feet, standing on her tiptoes to pull him down by the ear.
“Young man, what did you do?! I come over here and see my boy bloody, beaten up, and his school destroyed. I know you had something to do with this!”
Raidou turns white and begins stammering. “M-mom it’s not...I didn’t…” He can barely start explaining before he gets yoinked away from the rest of his club.
“That’s it, you’re getting homeschooled.” She declares as she drags him towards the portal. Everyone looks on in wild confusion at the scene in front of them.
As the portal is closing Raidou waves at everyone. “Don’t worry she’ll get over this soon, I’ll be back!” She smacks him on the forehead. “Ok maybe not.”
Tsubasa blinks a few times trying to process what just happened and then turns to the rest of the club. “Well I guess we know what he is going to do.”
“Papa’s prob’ly been real lonely,” Mari says. “Ah’m gonna go check up on him.” She gives Yuuri and Katsuki a hopeful look. “Unless y’all need me ta stick around…”
Yuuri smiles and starts to answer Mari but is cut off by Cerys, “Yeah I guess I’ll go live with my father for now too, hopefully there is at least one school up there.”
“You’re going back to Britain?” Akina looks confused. “Seems like a lot of trouble for no reason.”
“No, my father works at a big lab in Tsukuba. The only reason I’m here is because I hated the schools there.” Cerys waves her still gloved hand. “Enough about me. Akina, what are you going to be doing after this?”
“I’m going to continue training, I don’t see a need to go to school.”
Tsubasa frowns. “You have to go to school-” Akina stares at her causing her to forget her line of thinking. “W-well I guess you don’t have to go if you don’t want to go...”
Cerys laughs. “You should come to school with me, and not wander around like a hobo.” Akina stares at her like before but Cerys just laughs at her. “Come on, it would be fun.”
Saito feels a hand on his shoulder, he looks up to see Yuudai standing over him, he takes off his headphones, “Sup?”
“What are you going to do? I know you don’t have any parents, so I was wondering if you wanted to come to school with me?” Yuudai asks with a bright smile.
Saito gives him a weird look and puts back on his headphones. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I don’t want to live with you my guy.”
Yuudai’s eyes widen in shock and he stutters out, “W-what do you mean by that, I just thought you wanted to go to school with Yuuri, ya know?”
“I’m going to go back to Sapporo. I have a friend there, and I’ll live with him. Thanks for thinking of me, I’m fine, though.”
After the discussion of finishing out the year concludes, the club splits to return home, this time to their actual homes.
***
One month has passed since the events at Miyafuji came to their destructive conclusion. The Paranormal Club has adjusted back to their prior lifestyles, save for the knowledge that the world isn’t so clean cut as it once appeared. The group chat has been filled with discussion of their new schools, along with planning for a get together during the next break.
Katsuki enters her house after finishing another day of classes, to find Aiko sitting at the table, waiting for her. “Hey kiddo, how was school?”
“It was alright. It’s nice to be able to have classes with Yuuri and Yuudai still.”
“Well, those might not be the only two you’ll be seeing. You got invited to Zonzai.”
Katsuki looks at her with a blank face. “Uh, yeah, I know. That was for this year though.”
Aiko shakes her head and presents an envelope sealed with wax between her fingers. “For next year.” She flings it towards Katsuki, who catches it out of the air. Before she can open it, her phone starts vibrating in her pocket. She pulls it out to find the LIME group has a message from Yuuri.
‘Hey, did anyone else get handed one of these?’ Yuuri’s message reads, with an attached picture of the same envelope Katsuki now holds. Before Katsuki’s eyes, each other member of the club posts a confirmation, along with their own picture of the same letter, emblazoned with the Zonzai crest.
Katsuki smiles and snaps a picture of her own invite, before sending it with her own message. “Yep, sure did.”