Sayaka called Blade using Tsukune’s phone, much to his surprise. He didn’t have Blade’s number himself, and who memorized phone numbers these days? Sayaka, apparently.
Blade picked up on the second ring, and immediately rapid-fired questions into Sayaka’s ear, “Red!! Where are you?? What happened? Are you okay? Are the others okay? Do you have time to answer all my questions right now or is this your attempt at giving me a call to track you by?”
“It’s fine now,” Sayaka answered, wandering over to sit down on one of the room’s beds, facing the door, “It wasn’t, we ended up getting stuck in Future Style’s nightmare visions so she could harvest our fear. But now we’re in Nagasaki, in a hotel room, and everything’s fine. We’re planning to resume our investigation where we left off. Will you join us here?”
“Of course I will!” Blade exclaimed, “Send me your GPS information and I’ll be right there.”
“Hold up-” Sayaka said, “How did you know it was me before I said anything? I’m calling from Madara-kun’s phone.”
“Of course I would know that it’s you! I’ve been worried sick. Plus, you’re my favorite magica, I’d be a terrible Distributor if I didn’t know the sound of my Master’s breathing by now,” Blade said through the phone, then Sayaka sent the info, and it appeared in the room, “Ah! Good to see you’re all in one piece.”
“Stop referring to me as your master, it’s not like you’d ever really obey me,” Sayaka said, rolling her eyes as she crouched down to hold her hand out towards Blade, “I missed you, you know. It didn’t feel like three months for me, but it was still rough.”
“Are all of you holding up okay? I know that Future Style can be tough to handle. Oh, but also… It didn’t even seem like she was in Japan. We didn’t even think that she could be the problem. We knew you were still in the country, but we couldn’t pinpoint where it was,” Blade said, “I was starting to worry that Green really would have to become my new favorite! She’s surpassed you in rank, Red, but you’re still my favorite since you’re still alive. I’m not about to forget about you!”
“Good to know,” Sayaka said, then stood up straight and turned back to the others, narrowing her eyes, “If any of you lack the emotional fortitude to continue with our investigation as planned, speak now, or forever hold your piss.”
“You mean peace?” Zhou asked.
“Did I fucking stutter?” Sayaka questioned, then pointed a finger at each of them in turn, “You’re all pathetic, but come on! Uphold your honor as men and finish what you started, or else, you’re off the team now, and no running away later.”
“I won’t back down,” Kanoshi said, standing and holding his hands close to his chest in determined fists, “If this lead can point us toward Horace, then we have to follow it. For him, and all the other missing magica, before it happens to anyone else. It’s not like we took off on this investigation without any idea that we could be postponed, or encounter interference. We should have expected this, and it’s not a reason to quit.”
“Color me impressed, Moron-sensei,” Sayaka noted, dropping her arm back to her side, “And the rest of you?”
She received nods all around as the rest of the guys stood as well, and she couldn’t help but smirk at that. At least, if she had to be around people like this, they weren't as pathetic as they could have been. She at least had backup as she was returning to one of the only places in her life she had ever shown weakness. Even if this was the backup.
---
Kanoshi was shocked to see Korekara Academy.
In spite of the fact that it had been the stage for one of the most brutal massacres in the modern age, especially in this country, the building hadn't been knocked down. It had hardly been touched since then. Maybe there was a superstition, that a place so filled with death had to be somehow haunted. It stood as a daunting force in front of the group, and Kanoshi felt his stomach doing flips. Box Hako. That one girl could turn a place of learning into such a stark place of terror, the kind of place that would still carry urban legends on its name long after every victim was forgotten... How had she fallen so far?
Wasn't there anything Kanoshi could have done? He'd been her teacher once, after all. He taught her, and he noticed that she was struggling, that she was somebody who was easily manipulated or intimidated into doing things she clearly didn't want to, and he was told by his bosses that there wasn't much to be done. While schools tended to claim they wouldn't tolerate bullying, there were so commonly such politics to consider as what a reprimand would do to the bully, or to the bully's parent who could cause a big stir that the victim's parent hadn't yet bothered to. Unless Box had thought to make her problems the school's problems too, his hands were unfortunately tied.
And then she'd done this. Well, the Assis-co AI chip had, using Box as its vehicle. But was that just because, for some reason, the AI decided the best thing to do was to kill everyone in the building? Or was there already that potential inside Box, that it only unlocked? Was the glitch just a matter of the tech being built to help handle issues, and the way it deemed to handle Box's issues were to act on her most primal desires? It wasn't like Kanoshi could ever know the answer, but that didn't mean he would ever... Could ever stop wondering. Maybe even if Box hadn't ever been his student personally, he was still a teacher at heart, and it was the duty of a teacher to be there for students. Was there nobody ever there to help Box? Could she have been helped?
Was this outcome... Inevitable?
"Come on," Tsukune broke the silence and strode toward the doors, past a small cross made of wood that had a grey ribbon tied around the left arm. The only form of memorial this place bore for the ones who'd died here. As Tsukune opened the main door, everyone else fell in behind him, following inside the intimidating building.
Inside was worse than outside, by far. While the outside was that of a ghost school, a building that had been abandoned and left for time to ravage, unkept, the inside was a veritable horror house. The drywall was marked with scrapes and blood spatter, while the pools on the floor had hardly been touched, left to coagulate in such a manner that they looked almost as if, nearly two years after the fact, they'd still be somewhat wet and sticky to the touch. The bodies may have been removed, but it was still obvious where they'd been.
But somehow, most striking beyond any of that, because that was at least the sort of thing that everyone was expecting to see, was the fact that all of these things were well-lit. The lights were on in the hallways.
"You'd think they would have cut the power by now," Yuuri noted, staring up at one of the lights. It was stable. Not even flickering, "What's the point...?"
"Obviously, they did cut the power," Sayaka said, stepping past the others to be at the front of the pack, "But somebody else got the power back somehow."
"How can you assume something like that?" Kanoshi asked.
"Idiot," Sayaka scoffed under her breath, "We followed the information and the feeling of magic this far, so of course the person we're looking for is here somewhere. It doesn't feel like magica magic, though, I'd assume that it's a demon. In fact, I could probably tell you who it is, from the press release of who died, who survived, and who was listed as still missing following all recovery efforts. Unfortunately, I'll assume that we're hitting a dead end here."
"You can't say that yet," Kanoshi protested, "Just because you have those cards, doesn't mean that's all the cards! This demon could still know something that's of interest to us, you know."
"We're still going to talk to her," Sayaka griped, "But I would say that you shouldn't expect much of anything to come of it, okay? It's nothing to really get excited about. Come on, we're going to the science club's room."
With Sayaka's command, they followed her, and she threw open the door to the science room. It had been cleaned up, as well as possible. It was obvious that something had still happened here. The walls held the evidence, even after being cleaned. Sayaka strode inside, then crouched down to the floor in the corner of the room. She lifted the floor up, revealing it was a trapdoor with a ladder down. She looked to the others, and explained before they started to question, "An upperclassman of mine told me the secret of this room, back when things were normal. She was in the science club, and thought that I might find the information useful, for some reason. She was a friend of Kaiba-nee's, so I can only assume that's why she thought that I should know about it."
"Huh..." Zhou trailed off, "I guess, even before the massacre, this school had its secrets..."
"Far too many of them," Sayaka noted, then leaned into the hole and yelled out, harsh, "Akabane-san! I know you're in there, and you have some serious explaining to do!"
 |
| Rei Akabane |
"Okay," A voice answered, unbothered and simple, "Come down here. Bring your friends. I'll put the kettle on."
"Come on, guys," Sayaka said to the rest of them, then started to climb down the ladder into the depths of the science club room. Everyone hesitated a moment, but did follow her.
Kanoshi took note of the person who'd invited them down as soon as he hit the ground. She had a striking appearance, but a plain expression, as if several magica showing up to where she was hiding out was entirely everyday. She had light blue hair cropped close to her ears, and a smooth, dark complexion, but most striking was the proof she was a demon. Those red eyes stood out even more than the rest of her, and she narrowed them in Kanoshi's general direction as she spoke, "What exactly do I have to explain to you people, might I ask...?"
"We've been getting reports of weird monster activity around here, and you're the only source of magic for miles," Yuuri noted, stepping towards her, "What're you doing, hanging out in a ghost town, demon girl?"
"Oh, right, that," The demon noted, "Well, I can explain that. You really didn't have to come all the way here, but I'll be a nice host while you're here anyway. Oh, for those of you who I haven't met before, my name is Rei Akabane. As you've noticed, I am a demon, but I was in the human world before Nishimura-san opened the portal. My sister and I came here for research purposes, as we both have interest in Earth Sciences that are more easily studied from the human world. I am an electrical elemental. Let's have some tea. Any preferences? I have many types. I raided the bubble tea store after the owners committed suicide."
"How can you say that like it's nothing?" Zhou questioned, his voice quivering, "What happened at this school, and in this town... It has to be the most despairing event in all of human history. How can you just act like it doesn't mean a thing to you? That's so disrespectful!"
"Why should I respect the most despairing event in all of human history? I am not, and never have been human," Rei said, turned and walking away as soon as she was finished speaking. She approached the teakettle she had set upon a hot plate intended for research purposes, "So why don't you answer my question? A tea variety? If you don't say anything, I'll just give you all my personal favorite. Plum black tea."
"Wang-kun," Sayaka whispered to him, "Don't be too hard on her, o-okay?"
"Did you just stutter?" Yuuri asked, having overheard, and Sayaka blushed so hard she might have actually been able to see the color in her own cheeks.
"I did not, idiot!" She protested, crossing her arms over her chest, "All of you, please be sensitive!"
"Yeah," Kanoshi agreed, shooting his own glares at his other peers. That seemed to make them back down. Aggression from Sayaka was nothing new, but aggression from Kanoshi meant that something really was serious. He'd noticed the stuttering too, but he wasn't about to comment on it. After all, this had been Sayaka's high school for several months. Even if she tried to distance herself, she was bound to care about some of the people here, and given that Box was still listed as missing, Sayaka clearly hadn't been able to stop her. Sayaka wouldn't have kept it secret or hid the body. Sayaka was among the people who'd hardly escaped with their lives. This school was a tomb for many, and an endless well of survivors' guilt for a few. Even if Sayaka was tough, and wanted to act the part, she was obviously affected by being back here.
"Okay, looks like it's Plum Black Tea all around, then," Rei said, picking the kettle up with her bare hands. She brought it over to a lab bench where she'd lined up mugs, and filled five of the six before the kettle slipped from her hands, to the floor. She took one step backwards, then slowly brought her hands up and looked at them, her palms red and beginning to blister in places.
Sayaka stepped in before anybody else could react, "Don't worry, Akabane-san. I don't need any tea."
"Okay..." Rei said slowly, then turned to look at Sayaka and smiled, but somehow that seemed worse than the blank look, "I'm sorry that I'm so clumsy. I guess I've always been this way. Usually..." She trailed off, her smile turning confused and her eyes darting back and forth, "Who was it, that usually keeps me from doing things like that?"
Nobody said anything. A silence hung over the room. Sayaka seemed to be groping for some sort of reply to that, but she wasn't coming up with anything that would work. Kanoshi watched her struggling, then took a deep breath and stepped forward, speaking up, "E-Excuse me, Akabane-san, sorry to be a bother, but since you haven't put the teab-bags in just yet, I'm actually fond of plain green tea. Do you think I could have that?"
Rei snapped her head up, then her expression returned to normal, and she gave a slow nod before speaking as she went toward the cabinets, "Yes, of course. I have to be a good host, after all. That's kind of you to say, leaving more of the plum black tea for me, even though I'm sure you did actually prefer it... I can't say I won't take it if you give me an out to be selfish, you know."
"Of course," Kanoshi said, "We're intruding on you, anyhow. At least one of us should have the common decency to give you an out to be selfish."
"That's fair," Rei said, "Thank you very much. How did you ever learn those sort of manners, though?"
"I guess I'm just good with people," Kanoshi lied. Actually, that tactic of distraction was one that he had to use often back when he was still teaching. He still missed it. Teaching had always been his dream job, after all, and he'd lost that to this life instead. Hopefully, though, he could help enough people this way. All he'd ended up doing as a teacher, in the end, was failing his students. If he could protect people as a magical boy, then that was okay. And if the skills he'd learned teaching middle schoolers ended up helping in situations like these, then that was all for the better.
"You're very kind," Rei said, dropping the teabags into the mugs full of hot water. Plum black tea in four, green tea in one. Between Kanoshi's efforts and Sayaka's, it seemed like some sort of problem had been avoided, though not a one of them could actually work out what exactly that problem would have been. Rei was definitely an odd one.
Meeting her was interesting, though. She was a demon who'd come to the human world before the black magic portal had been opened, and she was the first of that kind that Kanoshi met, as far as he knew. After the opening of the portal, there had been some demon children who transferred into the school he taught at, with barriers between the two worlds broken down so much. Even so, there was culture shock there. Rei seemed completely adapted to human life, even emulating it to the best of her ability in the ruins of the school she'd been attending.
In order to be admitted to Korekara Academy, Kanoshi knew, Rei had to have been considered to be at the top of her field given her age. In this case, it seemed, that was electrical work. The girls admitted to Korekara had all sorts of talents, but Box... The one who'd ruined the lives that everyone had built in this town, Kanoshi thought she had been a lovely girl, but she didn't have any particular talents. He remembered she was so surprised to receive the invitation, and her entire family moved to Nagasaki with her. Maybe he should have known back then, that something was off. Box wasn't admitted to Korekara for any talent, she was admitted because Assis-co, the creators of the chip in her brain, were sponsors of the school.
It was that company's decision to send Box here that led to the destruction of all that this town had once known, but, Kanoshi thought, maybe that was the intention all along. Assis-co was not directly responsible for the fact that their AI was hacked, but they probably knew that it was possible that could happen. And it was still being tested, too. Maybe Box was sent to Korekara because something like this had the potential of happening. While everybody there was talented, it was also a small school, and it already had a record of murders, suicides, and accidental deaths among its student body that it couldn't be held accountable for; In part because all of those talented students were also known to be problem children.
So maybe, Kanoshi thought, as morbid as the thought was... In the case that something like this might happen, was Box brought here because it wouldn't be as terrible as if she did such a thing at a more populous school, with a greater number of individuals who would be missed? Though, he doubted they anticipated the fallout that the entire town would leave the area after something like that. The quick-growing economy of alumni businesses and people moving into town from other areas fell apart, and now nobody lived here. They all packed up and moved within six months, if they even lived that long. Nobody wanted to stay around a place of death.
Well, almost nobody. Rei was still here.
"So, Akabane-san," Kanoshi addressed her, to voice his thoughts as she handed him his tea, "Why did you stick around here?"
"I didn't have anywhere else to go," Rei said with a slight shrug, "Besides, Yamaguchi-chan came back here, right? So others might come back too. That's always a possibility. I want there to be somebody left. They need somebody left, right?"
"That makes sense," Sayaka said, staring down at the ground, "But, how can you stand to be in a place like this, alone most of the time? I came back, but only because I had to. I don't plan on staying in the area at all."
"Understandable, have a good day," Rei said, lifting a hand to her own cheek, "I'm not alone, though. Someone else is living here with me. I don't think you ever met this person, though. Did you ever speak to Box Hako prior to her hospitalization?"
"Absolutely not," Sayaka said, "I never gave a shit about her."
"So you never met my friend," Rei said, then gestured for Sayaka and the others to follow her, "Come on, you should meet him. He's in the back room, though. I'll let him know that we have visitors."
With that, everyone followed after Rei, and she turned to hit the back of her knuckles against a heavy steel door set into the far wall of the basement, "Apo-kun! We have visitors. It's Sayaka Yamaguchi and a handful of grown ass men."
 |
| Apollo Ai |
"That's certainly a weird assortment, and don't call me Apo-kun in front of people who haven't met me yet..." A voice floated back through the door, then moments later, it opened. Standing before them was a young man, dressed in a white vest over a lavender t-shirt, with jeans. His skin was a pallid shade of grey rather than anything sensible, but it looked okay on him, probably because of the fact that his hair matched his vest and his eyes matched his shirt, with strange mechanical-looking freckles spattered across his nose.
"This is Apollo Ai," Rei gestured to him, introducing him, "He was Box Hako's first AI before it was replaced during her hospitalization. That was sort of the science club's fault, cause we stole him from her brain. And we made him a body, too. Isn't it impressive?"
"Well that's one way to solve one of the biggest mysteries of my time at this school, I guess," Sayaka deadpanned.
"If you're thinking of blaming Reicchi for what happened," Apollo spoke up, fidgeting in place, "Please don't. I would have been just as susceptible to being hacked as Box's new AI was, if I'd stayed in her head. My new body might have even been used instead of her, if it was actually finished by the time the hack happened... But at that time, I couldn't move, so that AI was used instead. It was just circumstance."
"I wasn't thinking of blaming her," Sayaka said, "The only person to blame for what happened is whoever hacked that AI, I'm not an idiot. I know what constitutes being responsible for something."
"But, can't multiple people contribute to something bad happening?" Zhou asked, quietly, "It's still possible that what the science club did..."
"It's not," Sayaka snapped, turning to face him, "And don't you imply that it is, again. It's just not possible. Nobody inside of Korekara Academy had anything to do with what happened, it was just a tragedy! We're lucky anybody got out alive at all..."
"Ah, you do have a point there," Kanoshi noted, "Chances are that whoever did this... Wanted to hurt everybody at Korekara, including Box Hako herself. She was always mild-mannered, so I can only imagine that making her go through hurting her own classmates firsthand didn't do much for her mental health."
"Or her physical health," Sayaka noted, crossing her arms, "She's probably dead, right? Even if she was listed as MIA, there's no way that she stopped without getting killed."
Kanoshi wasn't so sure about that, but he realized it was only because of her appearance in the vision Future Style had put him through. Box, like Ayano and Hikari, was just one more example of how Kanoshi was unable to help his students. One more way of showing him his fears, and nothing else, because that was what Future Style's visions were. Just nightmares, preying on her targets' worst insecurities. Kanoshi couldn't put any stock in them, couldn't assume that Box was still out there just because she'd appeared in his vision. If Ayano and Hikari represented his failure as an individual teacher, then Box represented the failure of the school which had employed him.
There should have been plenty of opportunities to save her, but no teacher ever stopped to wonder if this impressionable young girl might need some help or some adult support besides her parents who never witnessed the same things they did. Kanoshi couldn't blame his ex-coworkers for letting Box go on to end up hurting people under the influence of some hacked chip in her head, but he could blame them, and himself, for letting Box reach the point that was possible. Like Apollo just said, if it wasn't Box, it would have been somebody else who ended up doing exactly the same things. Box herself could have been saved, though. Couldn't she? Kanoshi wanted to think it could have been possible, and that was where the insecurity was born.
"Right," Rei agreed, "The fact that her body was never found doesn't mean anything. If she died outside of the school, for example, nobody was looking there. And then, by the time somebody might have looked there, a monster probably ate the carcass. There are a lot of those around here. I can't seem to figure out what draws them to an area, though, no matter how much Apo-kun and I study them. You'd think it was population, or suffering, but as far as I can tell, an equivalent number seem to spawn between here, Antarctica, and other towns and cities throughout the world. Maybe it has something to do with tectonic plates, or weather patterns... Those would require longer-term analysis, though, so I can't yet say."
"You've been studying the monsters?" Yuuri asked, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but, how the Hell?"
"I'm a demon," Rei said, "And with nobody around, I don't have to hold back or anything. I can put them to sleep with large bursts of electricity, investigate them while they're unconscious, then come back here to hide out until they're done. That's why the town's in such disrepair... Though, I guess that they leave the school itself alone, for some reason. The campus has never sustained any damage. Maybe it's because the black magic portal was made here, and they have some form of respect for the thing that allowed them to form?"
"That seems plausible," Tsukune said, then looked to Apollo, "So how's the robot body treating you, eh?"
"Pretty good," Apollo answered, stepping out of the room to wander aside with Tsukune, "We've talked before, haven't we?"
"Right," Tsukune said with a nod, "I recognized your voice right away, we've run into each other in a few games, right?"
"Mhm," Apollo agreed, "While my body was still being built I didn't really have anything better to do, that's why I was playing those MMOs and stuff."
"You gave me a rare fish once," Tsukune said, "That I needed for a quest."
"I spend most of my time in those games fishing, yeah," Apollo admitted, "Whatever the fish was, chances are I had a full stack in my inventory... I had at least ten stacks full of most common fish. I didn't need to sleep or anything, just power off for a few hours once a week, so I was just able to keep fishing."
"That's pretty cool," Tsukune said, "I mean, I think so anyway."
"It's been a while since I played any online games except for Overwatch," Kanoshi said, "But, that's a really good way to make the best of being a robot guy!"
"Well, I don't exactly consider my state as a robot guy to be a handicap, but I agree. I am making the best of it," Apollo said, giving a short nod, "I just wish this town were a little closer to the ocean or a river, then I could try to fish for real, now that I am fully mobile! Unfortunately, I cannot leave Korekara Town. Seeing that my mind is still Assis-co technology, were I to go out in the rest of the world it would surely end badly for me. I shouldn't even still be functional, as most of the AIs of my sort were shut down remotely immediately following the attack."
"There is a stream," Sayaka spoke up, "It's not much, but it's there. A lot of people don't know it's actually part of Korekara Town because the property was purchased from the next town over only about... Maybe six or seven years ago? There is a bridge over it that some people say is cursed, but you know, that's dumb. It's not cursed. There might be a few fish in the stream anyway, at least during the rainy season when it gets big enough to connect with a lake out east."
"Thank you," Apollo said with a nod in her direction, "I'll keep that in mind, assuming... Reicchi, it's not cursed, right?"
"Of course it isn't cursed," Rei said, "I just didn't think it would have any fish. But, now that Yamaguchi-san mentions it, it might get some when it's really rainy, yeah..."
"Next time it rains a lot, can we go have a look?" Apollo asked, seeming to give Rei the strongest puppy-dog eyes any android could ever be capable of.
"Sure," Rei said, waving him off, then turned to the group of magica, "Anyway. You came to see me because I'd been studying the monsters, right?"
"Well technically," Blade popped its head out of Sayaka's bag, joining the conversation, "We came here because the monsters were behaving strangely, and anything particularly odd is important to investigate at a time like this. But what we found was even more interesting. You're able to witness the monster attacks?"
"That's right," Rei said, "I'd assume it's because I'm a demon, right?"
"No, not at all," Blade said, "Actually, it sounds like you have a unique ability that only certain humans and demons have, period. Usually only magica can see the monsters, but the odd non-magica gets the ability. As far as we've observed, the ability... Well, it's more like a curse, mostly applies to young girls and really old men."
"Oh," Rei said, "Well, I don't think it's much of a curse. I haven't died yet even though there aren't any magica around here to defeat the monsters or anything, but I guess that maybe I'd dislike it if I did get killed but didn't die and had to remember dying. But so far, it's just given me the opportunity to study the things. Anyway, is that all you needed from me? Forgive me, but I may actually be feeling a bit overwhelmed to be social with all five... six of you, at once."
"Thanks for remembering I'm sapient!" Blade chimed in.
"Anytime, shitty kitty," Rei said with a nod, "Anyway... How was my subtle way of asking you to leave?"
"Not especially subtle," Zhou said, "But understood. We'll get out of your hair."
"Wait, wait," Blade spoke up, "Actually, before we go. I usually don't offer this to demons since becoming a magica just slightly improves the abilities you already have, but, you're different. Your abilities actually have a combat application, and since you've just been stuck living with the monsters anyway, wouldn't it be nice to get the chance to do something about them? What I'm trying to say, Akabane-chan, is do you want to become a magical girl?"
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