"Ahaha... w-what's going on?" Unohara Rika asks with a deranged laugh as she looks down on Ishihara Ginji's bloodied face. While his eyes are filled with fear and suffering, his mouth is the mockery of a wide grin, exacerbated by the fact that his cheeks have been ripped open all the way to his ears. It is a twisted throwback to his nature as the class clown, who brings people laughter by making oftentimes inappropriate jokes. "This... this must a bad dream, right?"
She turns to Mouri Akane, whose glasses are sliding off her nose as she trembles from the sight. With shaky fingers, she pushes them back up and averts her gaze from the corpse as well as Rika, looking through the dirty and dark room with restless eyes. The sound of old creaking floorboards coming from below them causes the two girls to flinch, as they both stare at the ground in dread while pressing their hands to their mouths to suppress any sounds they could make. The two girls look at each other with bloodshot eyes.
"... whatever it is, it's coming..." Akane whispers in terror. "... we... we have to run!"
"N-no, I'll hide in the locker! Hahaha, I'm small, so I can fit." Rika responds and runs to the narrow and dirty metal doors in the back of the room. When she pulls one open, the squeaking of rusty hinges echoes through the room. Looking at each other in shock, they suppress their breathing to listen to any sounds coming from outside the room.
To their horror, the noise of footsteps rushing through the corridor below them resounds throughout the old school building.
"I'm sorry, Akane. But you'll have to find some other place to hide." Rika mutters with a fearful look at Akane and immediately presses herself into the locker. However, no matter how she pushes, chafing her beautiful and smooth skin, she cannot fit her head. Then she realizes that she is stuck, unable to go either in or out. For a moment, her movements stop and she stares at the girl with the glasses with an aghast expression. In the next, desperate tears fill her eyes as the footsteps come up the staircase. "Help! Help me, Akane!!!"
Sitting on the ground, Akane simply stares with a terrified expression, her mind overloading from the pressure of the situation. Her mouth opens and closes without making a sound. All the while, Rika twists and wiggles her body in mortal fear, trying to unstuck herself using her own strength. As the creaking sounds approach, her face fills with even more desperation and her secret idol facade crumbles. She begins to spew abuses and shouts at the other girl for her help. "You bitch, don't just sit there and get me out of here!"
"I... I can't-" With a trembling voice, Akane mutters as her mind ceases to work the same moment as the footsteps end outside their room. The glasses slide off her nose and her shaking stops completely. In the next instant, the door to the classroom slams open.
"Alright, time to move out." Olethea states and zips up her bodysuit. She presses a button on the included wristband control panel, upon which all the air is vacuumed out from inside the suit, causing it to become skintight. Attaching a flat metallic drum to one of the hard points on her waist, she fixes a holster containing a small futuristic looking gun to the other side. With the press of another button, the blue suit takes on the color of her skin, and she begins to put on her school uniform, right over it. "You got the proton pack?"
"I would appreciate it if you didn't call a device to combat ghosts with by that name... And yes, got it." Senka responds and pushes the button on her oversized suit. It shrinks to fit her body and becomes skintight as well. She attaches the drum-shaped proton pack to a hard point on her lower back, where it is less visible than it would be on her waist, due to her small stature. Forgoing the bandages as she feels that there is no more need to hide her scars, she covers her mouth with a surgical mask out of pure habit.
"How did Hitomi's contest go?"
"She placed fourth." In a matter of fact tone, Senka responds as if it is nothing important. Hitomi tried to keep her composure while reporting that her senpai from the track and field club won pretty much effortlessly, leaving behind the leading pack and completely ignoring the benefits of slipstream rotations, even though it was a windy day. It was clear that her cheerfulness was forced and there was a sniffle in her voice. Hitomi is not as strong as she tries to show herself to be. A twinge of regret tugs at Senka's heart at the thought that they will not meet again, most likely forever. She would be hugged and cuddled for the track and field girl's comfort, if they did.
"Don't worry, we can always come back here to visit your sweetheart~ ♪" Olethea quips, a mischievous grin on her lips. Looking up to her in irritation, the stitched girl rolls her eyes.
Attaching her own holster to a hard point on her thigh, Senka weighs the gun in her hands, examining its properties. It is shaped like a normal handgun, but has a cubic body, lacking a barrel opening. Apparently it will change its form when the trigger is pulled, and does not fire projectiles, but rather creates a negative gravity space within a straight path, which collapses any and all matter in a set space around it. In other words, it is an incredibly devastating weapon, in complete contrast to its size. Olethea calls it a Quasar gun.
"Why are we wearing our school uniforms? It's summer vacations now..." The stitched girl comments while holstering the weapon. She puts on her skirt and hides the weapon underneath it, before buttoning up her short-sleeved shirt.
"Because we're going to school and it's the most fitting thing to wear." The red-head replies with a raised eyebrow, as if she does not understand the problem.
"It was an insinuation... you know, people in fiction always wear the same clothes and... never mind." Sighing, Senka ties her hair up into a ponytail and denotes that she is ready to depart for the test of courage at the abandoned old school building.
"Is everyone here?" Kitagawa Satoshi asks, his arm over his delinquent-looking girlfriend from another school. She appears to be incredibly disinterested and is playing around with her phone, while he organizes the event.
"Wow, even Rika and Akane came." Lethia whispers to Senka, as the two girls in question approach them. Akane is known to be a rumor nut, so it was to be expected that she would not miss out on this opportunity to explore the old school building, which is ripe with them. Rika is a friend of hers, and was most likely taken along so that she would not be alone. Considering the fact that the pairs are to be decided on by drawing lots, they will most likely be split up, though.
The group has swelled to an overall of twelve people, with the majority being girls. Considering it was organized by Satoshi, Asahina Yasuko and Hanayama Aki would be present without a doubt. However, seeing that he already has a girlfriend has devastated them, and they are uncharacteristically quiet, biting their thumbs and standing slightly apart from the main group.
"The goal is to leave behind your names on the blackboard of the faculty room on the third floor, but you have to take the long way around." Ishihara Ginji explains while Imagawa Masashi prepares the lots. There is an overall of fourteen people, including Satoshi and his girlfriend , Rika and Akane, Lethia and Senka, Yasuko and Aki, Ginji and Masashi.
Satoshi ignores the lots, deciding on his own to go with his girlfriend, and are the first to enter the school building. Ginji draws the same number as Akane, and Masashi is with Rika, but there are more girls than boys, so the end result is that Lethia is paired up with Aki and Senka is going with Yasuko. Thus, with a three minute delay between each other, the pairs go into the old school building, wielding cheap flashlights to illuminate the darkness before them.
"This is all so exciting." Akane points the cheap flashlight they were given before entering all over the corridor and seems to be completely fine despite the creepy atmosphere. The creaking floor boards and noises of wind blowing through the cracks of the building create a choir of sounds that put Ginji on edge. He is unexpectedly the type to be scared of dark places, even though he was one of the people who organized the event.
"I didn't think the old school building would be so creepy at night..." While looking around nervously, he remains close to Akane.
"What's this, you're scared of the dark?" Teasing him, she says with a mischievous grin and switches off the light in her hand.
"Ahhh, don't do that!" Ginji shouts and waves his arms around trying to grab Akane, but she avoids it skillfully. Switching it back on, she stretches out her tongue and shines it at him. "Never do that again..." He mutters and looks away in embarrassment and for a moment, there is silence between the two.
"Ahn, yes, there!" Just then, a female's voice echoes through the hallway of the second floor. Looking at each other, the two share a long stare, remaining silent to try and catch any more sounds. The only two that entered before them are Satoshi and his girlfriend from another school. "Ah, so good!"
"... don't tell me..." Ginji mutters.
"... let's take a look..." Akane whispers with a hint of excitement on her blushing face. Seeing it, he is stunned by her charm for a moment and goes silent. "Come on." Taking his hand, she pulls him along and they venture deeper into the building.
They ascend the last few steps to the second floor as quietly as possible, with Akane showing Ginji that when trying to be sneaky, using the edges of wooden stairs makes the least amount of creaking sounds because that is where they are fixed and most stable.
"I learned that in a book and tested it at home. It's true, I can now sneak up on my sister and play pranks on her." With a mischievous smile, she explains in a hushed voice. Ginji feels his heart beat faster, thinking that he never noticed how cute she was before. He had always only heard that she has strange tastes and a weird personality, but seeing her now, he cannot help but think that she is just a normal girl with an interest in rumors and mysteries.
"It's coming from the last classroom. They went out of their way to go to a place people wouldn't pass by normally." This whisper takes him out of his thoughts and he stares at Akane blankly for a moment. "Let's go."
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Walking along the wall of the hallway, once again to avoid causing any floorboards to creak, the two slowly approach the room where the noises are coming from. It becomes more and more audible the closer they get, until they finally reach the door beyond which Satoshi and his girlfriend are undoubtedly engaged in lovemaking. Akane peeks into the classroom through the window in the door, and sees two shadowy figures, barely illuminated by the flashlight dropped on the floor carelessly.
"They're really doing it..." She mutters in amazement, her face flushed red from seeing the scene unfold before her. Ginji follows her example and watches the rhythmic undulating movements of two human bodies against the wall, accompanied by a girl's moans. Even though not much is visible, his imagination is filling in the blanks and he can feel his pants becoming uncomfortably tight.
Furthermore, being so close to Akane, he can smell her sweet scent and feel her body heat, as her breathing is growing more intense from watching. Is she feeling it, too? Peeking at her from the corners of his eyes, he once again realizes her charm. In the spur of the moment, he turns around to her and grabs her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. She is stunned by the suddenness of his actions and is unable to react. Moving his face close to hers, their lips touch and Ginji forces a kiss onto her.
"Mmhhh!" Akane realizes the situation a moment later and protests in a muffled voice, before pushing him away. "What are you doing?!"
"Ah, shhh! It was just a joke." He tries to calm her down, but she is clearly upset about his actions and looks down at her own feet with trembling shoulders. "You know, to lighten the mood..." Really, he does not understand what he is saying himself; his mind is going blank at his own actions.
"Huh, is there someone out there?" The girl's voice from inside the classroom yells with a mixture of shock and irritation.
"I'll go take a look." Satoshi's says and creaking footsteps approach their position.
"Oh shit, they're coming. We have to get away from here!" Whispering to Akane, Ginji tries to bring her to begin moving, but she seems to have frozen up.
"What, it's just Ginji and the rumor nut?" The door slides open and Satoshi, topless, pants open and clearly drunk, stands before them. "Peeping on us, huh? Not a nice hobby, you know." He turns to the glasses girl and tilts his head a little. "What's with her? Must be horny from seeing us do it, huh?"
"Satoshi, what's going on?" His girlfriend asks in an impatient voice.
"Don't worry, I'll be right back with you." Turning back to the two before him, he grins. "Why don't you join us?" He puts a hand over Akane's shoulder casually, upon which she flinches. But when he attempts to pull her along, all resistance disappears from his grasp. "Huh?"
"Wh-what?" Ginji's eyes are wide open, a terrified look in them. "Y-your arm."
Looking down at himself, Satoshi realizes that his arm has been severed right below the shoulder. Blood is flowing from the stump with every beat of his quickening heart. He goes white at the sight and tries to stop the bleeding with his other hand, the corners of his mouth twitching in a disbelieving smile.
"Wha-what is this? What's going on...?" His voice is shaky and his knees buckle. At the same time as he falls, his head separates from his shoulders and slowly turns around in midair, a deranged grin frozen on his face. It comes to face Akane, who whimpers at the sight.
"Huh, Sato-" His girlfriend, who has only seen a shadowy figure collapse at the door moves towards it. But in the next moment, her crotch rips open and spews blood and organs onto the floor. Before she can even realize what happened to her, her legs give out and she falls straight onto her face and stops moving.
"A joke, huh?" An ethereal voice echoes in Ginji's mind and he flinches. Without a second wasted on thoughts, he runs away, down the hallway towards the stairs. His mind is giving out from incomprehension and fear, but self-preservation takes over and allows him to run faster than he has ever done before. He makes it all the way to the last classroom before the stairs, when he has the inexplicable urge to turn around and see what has happened to Akane.
However, before he can, a force pulls him sideways and sends him crashing into the classroom. Sitting up on the floor and looking around in fear, he suddenly feels a tugging on the corners of his mouth and his face distorts into a forced smile. Before he can even bring his hands up, his head is bent backwards at a hundred and eighty degree angle from his lower jaw, ripping open his cheeks and breaking his neck. With a slow, almost gentle motion, it comes up again and settles into its natural place. Then he falls onto his back, a bloody grin disfiguring his face, distorted in a twisted mixture of terror and joy.
"So, what're you going to do during summer break, Rika?" Masashi asks casually as he walks beside Rika, through the hallway of third floor, approaching the faculty room which is the goal of the test of courage.
The two are the third pair of the night and are childhood friends, but ever since the petite girl has entered show business as an aspiring idol, any possibility of a relationship between them has practically been eliminated. As an idol, Rika is not allowed to have a boyfriend, and even just being seen with a boy outside of work may cause a scandal, which would result in her losing any prospects of succeeding in the business. Since she is not very well known, and this is within school grounds at night, the likelihood of her being seen is very slim. Especially after making a point in coming together with Akane.
"... you know very well what I'll be doing." Rika's response may sound abrasive, but in reality, she is frustrated about the fact that she cannot make up her mind in choosing between her promising career as an idol and her feelings for Masashi. And the fact that he seems completely oblivious to that fact is causing her irritation. On the new transfer student's first day at school, he asked her if she had a boyfriend, after all.
"More idol work, huh?" He gives her a bashful smile. She wants to scream at him to realize how she feels, but averts her gaze to hide her developing blush. Whenever he makes that face, she cannot hold herself back from falling for him all over again. "Ah-" Masashi suddenly makes.
"Huh, what is... it...?" Rika turns to him and shines the flashlight at him, but her voice trails off at the sight.
Masashi stands before her, a hole in his chest through which the wall behind him is visible. In his raised hands is a red and glistening object, of which the identity is unmistakably that of a human heart. Blood spurts out of his mouth as he tries to say something, before his eyes roll back in their sockets and he falls forward. The heart seems to magically jump out of his hands and out of reflex, Rika catches it. Her eyes widen in horror and she drops it.
"What is this?! What's going on???" Rika mutters and spins on her heels, immediately running down the hallway and down the stairs in a frenzy. Her mind is telling her to find a hiding place rather than run out of the building, even though she should be aware that it seems to be a wrong choice.
She immediately enters the first classroom on the second floor and quickly closes the door, trying to steady her breathing while listening intently for the sound of footsteps that may be following her. When she finally calms down and silence lays itself like a blanket over the school, the image of Masashi's death returns to the foreground of her thoughts.
"Rika-chan?" A voice makes behind her and she flinches, before spinning around with a whimper.
"Akane?" Upon realizing who it is, her knees give out and she sinks to the floor. Then her eyes fall onto Ginji's mangled corpse. That is her breaking point and she screams at the top of her lungs.
"Ugh, why am I with you... even Ishihara would've been better..." Yasuko says in a straightforward complaint about her pairing. She walks ahead of Senka, not a hint of fear despite only being able to illuminate a small circle on the ground with her flashlight.
"At least the feeling is mutual." The doll-like girl mutters with a shrug and continues on. She has night vision, which allows her to see in the darkness even without the use of a flashlight. Due to the fact that it is a moonless night, nobody has noticed that she is not wearing her bandages tonight, but upon her clearly audible words, Yasuko spins around with an angry expression on her face, and points the light at her.
"What did you just- huh?" She sees the stitched scars covering Senka's body and her eyes go wide in shock. "Where did you get those scars from?!"
"Make-up. I'm just dressing for the occasion." With a dismissive gesture, the stitched girl responds and points forward. "More importantly, don't you think that this hallway has been going on for a little too long?"
"Huh?" Turning around, Yasuko shines the light deep into the corridor, to reveal that it seems to continue on endlessly. "Wait, that doesn't..." She shines it down the way they came and realizes that the entrance area has disappeared in the distant darkness. "... how is this... possible?"
"There it is." Senka sighs and sharpens her senses, immediately seeing through the illusion with her keen eyes, upon which it breaks and reality snaps back into place.
"Wh-what?" Completely unable to comprehend the situation, Yasuko looks back and forth, trying to make sense of what she just saw.
Just then, a girl's scream echoes through the building.
"Which brings us to this situation at the start..." The stitched horror girl mutters while looking at the thoroughly terrified Akane, sitting in a puddle of her own mess, and Rika, who has torn and cut her skin in several places trying to fit into the rusty metal locker.
"Hey, you were about to leave me behind alone, weren't you?!" Yasuko comes up behind Senka and shouts while out of breath. Then she notices Akane's state and her expression changes to one of mockery. "Huh, seriously?" Senka takes the flashlight from her hand and shines it at Ginji's corpse, causing the laughter to get stuck in her throat. "What the...?!"
"... Ootsuki-san... and Asahina-san?" Rika stutters and shakes in a mixture of fear and disbelief. It is very dark in the old school building and neither of the girls are pointing their flashlights at the door, so they do not really see her full appearance. Her scars would have made the situation worse, and if her mask had been off, they would have thought that she was a ghost. "It's you, right?"
"Yes, it is." Shining the newly appropriated flashlight onto her face from below, Senka states, and the two girls flinch at the ghastly sight. "Ok, sorry about that..."
"... Ishihara-san is..." Akane mutters, her expression frozen in anxiety. Tears are forming in the corners of her eyes and the doll-like girl shakes her head with a sigh. She is aware that those who survive tonight will need psychological counseling, potentially for the rest of their lives. But collateral damage has always been part of their line of work, and with a target such as this one, it is unavoidable.
"What happened here? What's going on?!" Yasuko stutters and slowly steps back from the door to the classroom, into the corridor.
"Come, we have to get out of here." Holding out her hand to the bespectacled girl kneeling on the floor, Senka speaks with a serious expression. Then a shiver runs down her back and she spins around while pointing the light cone above Rika, who is still stuck in the locker. Two ethereal glowing hands are passing through the wall, holding a pair of garden shears, and coming down on the girl.
"Wh-what is it? Get me out of here already." She asks upon noticing that Senka is facing her. Then her eyes open wide, when she realizes that the stitched girl is looking above her. Unable to turn her head, she begins to grow desperate again and shouts at her. "Tell me, what's going on? What is above me?! Help me! Heeelp!!!"
In the next moment, before the stitched girl is able to do anything, the blades of the shears come together and separate again in a quick motion. Rika's voice stops and her face grows blank, before it slides down and falls to the ground with a wet squelch. The two-faced girl relying on her cute looks has just lost all that defined her, along with her very life. The hands wave at Senka in a mocking gesture and disappear into the wall again.
"Noooooo!!!" Akane screams when the light cone is lowered and reveals the remains of Rika's once endearing face. Quickly averting the flashlight, Senka pulls out the proton pack and switches it on.
"This is so going to leave a bad aftertaste in my mouth..." Muttering this, she prepares to follow their assassination target.