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SAGAU Mondstadt - Holiday Special 2023

Summary: “When you told the Spark Knight about holidays from your home world, you never expected it to turn into such a big deal. But who are you to argue with having a holly, jolly time?”

Word Count: ~9.8k

“Master Jean! Master Jean!”

The door to the Grand Master’s office was shoved open, almost slamming into the wall, as the Spark Knight burst into the room, excitement radiating off of her form like heat off of flames. She came to a stop in the middle of the office, almost toppling over from the weight of her backpack.

“Can we please have a “Christmas” festival? Pretty please?”

“Klee…!” Jean looked up from her desk, her eyes widened. “You shouldn’t be-”

Her words were cut off at the sight of you appearing in the doorway to the office, your demeanor a lot more calm than Klee’s. You entered the room, an apologetic smile displayed on your lips.

“Oh, Your Grace!”

“Sorry for the intrusion, Jean.” You looked at the Acting Grand Master for only a moment before you shifted your attention down at Klee. “Hey, I know you’re excited, but you shouldn’t just barge into Jean’s office without knocking first, Klee. Remember what I told you about good behavior?”

“Oops. That’s right… sorry, Master Jean.” Klee looked down at her feet for a moment, before a smile returned to her face as she looked up at Jean. “Klee’s just super excited about Christmas!”

Jean furrowed her eyebrows, confusion appearing in her frown. “Christ… mas?”

“Mmm-hmm!” Klee nodded her head. “It’s something Their Grace just told Klee about!”

Your smile shifted into something more sheepish when Jean looked towards you again. “I was just talking to Klee about some… winter festivities from where I’m from, and she seems to have gotten a bit excited about Christmas, in particular. I honestly should’ve expected this, heh…”

“It sounds really, really fun!” Klee began bouncing on the balls of her feet. “There’s a big tree, and lots of presents under it, and this old man named Shanty Cloths who likes eating cookies!”

“His name is Santa Claus, Klee.” You stifled a chuckle at the excitement on Klee’s face, before looking over at Jean again. “But, yeah, she wants to experience the magical joys of it herself.”

The Spark Knight took a step closer to the desk, looking up at Jean with hopeful eyes.

“Oh, can we please have a Christmas festival, Master Jean? It’ll be so amazing, and fun!”

Jean blinked a few times, an unsure frown on her face, before she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Klee, but we can’t just put on a whole new festival that we know nothing about, especially with such short notice. It’d likely be a complete disaster, and I’ve already got a lot on my plate as is.”

The smile on Klee’s face slowly vanished, her form appearing to deflate. “Oh…”

You looked between the Spark Knight and the Acting Grand Master, your own smile fading as you focused on Klee — her crushed enthusiasm didn’t sit well with you — before you spoke.

“...you know, it’s not impossible. You can still experience Christmas, Klee.”

Jean looked at you with confusion. “Your Grace…?”

“Can Klee really?” The Spark Knight perked up as she turned towards you, her eyes widening with hope again. “It sounds so fun! And I want all of my friends to experience Christmas too!”

“Your Grace, I don’t mean to doubt you, but…”

Jean placed a hand on her chest, looking at you with worry in her gaze.

“It really would be near-impossible to put on a festival like this.”

“It’s okay.” You chuckled, and shrugged your shoulders. “Christmas is actually just a one-day holiday. Sure, there’s usually a build-up of festive energy a few weeks before it, but it doesn’t actually last more than a single day. While Klee keeps calling it a festival, it’s not really one.”

“Oh…?”

“So, Klee, do you think this would work for you?” You looked down at the Spark Knight, a smile on your lips. “We take part in a few traditional Christmas activities together over the next couple of weeks, and then finish it all off with a big ol’ Christmas party at the end. What do you think?”

“Yay! That sounds perfect!” Klee smiled brightly. “Klee can’t wait! There’s so much to do!”

You turned your attention over towards Jean. “Would that be okay, Jean?”

“That… should be fine, yes.”

“Great!” You clapped your hands together as you looked at Klee. “Then let’s get started!”

- - - - -

There were crayons littering the table as Klee readied herself, the young girl in red practically vibrating with excitement where she sat, and she held a crayon tightly in one hand with a piece of paper laying in front of her. She looked up at you, her eyes wide and sparkling with pure joy.

“Okay, first things first… I suppose we need to actually figure out what to do.” You looked down at Klee with a smile. “And who to include. As fun as it would be to have the entire city celebrate Christmas this time, it’s not very realistic, so… we’ll need to figure out a smaller list of people.”

“Oh! All of Klee’s friends have to experience Christmas!” Klee began to draw, switching crayons when in need of a different color.  “Like Big Brother Albedo, and Master Jean, and Kaeya, and-”

Klee continued to list people as she drew on the paper, before she lifted it up to show it to you.

“Is this okay, Your Grace?”

It was a cluttered drawing, filled with Klee’s artistic interpretations of people you knew well: the playable characters of Mondstadt — your “vessels”, as they often described themselves to be.

You nodded. “That seems good. Those are the people that I’m also closest to in Mondstadt.”

Klee set the drawing aside, before she grabbed another piece of paper and one of the crayons closest to her on the table. She tilted her head to continue looking up at you with a bright smile.

“Okay, but… what do people do for Christmas, Your Grace?”

“People do a lot of things. There’s no one right way to celebrate Christmas, Klee.” You grabbed a piece of paper and a crayon for yourself. “I’m pretty sure that you’re already familiar with some winter activities that align with Christmas, such as playing in the snow and making sweets, eh?”

Klee nodded and turned her attention to her paper, beginning to draw some winter scenes.

You twirled the crayon in your fingers a bit, before you chuckled. “And, since you’re helping to bring the joy of Christmas to everyone, I suppose that would make you Santa’s Helper, Klee.”

“Santa’s… Helper?” Klee blinked, curiosity flooding her widened eyes. “What’s that?”

“Well… it’s a person who helps Santa Claus spread Christmas cheer. Santa’s only one person, and he has the big job of delivering gifts to all the good children of the world, so he relies on his helpers to make sure that everyone is having fun during the weeks leading up to the big day. As this is the first time Christmas is being celebrated in Teyvat, Santa’ll appreciate all of your help.”

Klee let a wide smile appear on her face. “Whoa! So Klee gets to help Santa?”

“Yeah! And I just know you’ll do a great job, Klee!”

“Oh! And Dodoco too, right? She can also be Santa’s Helper?”

“Of course! The more, the merrier!”

“Yay!”

The Spark Knight clapped her hands in delight before she continued drawing, and you found yourself glancing at her pointed ears, your smile softening, before you started to draw as well.

Ah.

How fitting.

- - - - -

It felt crowded, having so many people in one area.

The playable members of the Knights of Favonius — from the Acting Grand Master to the Knights’ maid — lined up before you inside of the Knights’ headquarters; most had a look of curiosity or confusion on their face, and some even had concern painting their facial features.

But Klee was bouncing on the balls of her feet, standing next to you with a big smile on her face.

“Oh, Klee?” Albedo looked at the Spark Knight as he noticed her behavior, the curiosity in his eyes growing just slightly as he did. “You seem to be in rather high spirits about something…”

Klee nodded. “Uh-huh! ‘Cause it’s time for “Secret Santa”!”

The concern present in the audience was fully replaced with confusion and curiosity.

“...”Secret… Santa”?”

“Yeah! It’s gonna be part one for celebrating Christmas!”

Noelle put a finger to her chin. “Oh? I’ve never heard of “Christmas” before…”

“If it’s something to celebrate-” Amber looked up at Eula. “-then it’s gotta be a holiday, right?”

Eula nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes, it must be some kind of festivity.”

“So…” Mika placed a hand on his chest in relief. “...it’s not an emergency? Thank goodness…”

Lisa let out a hum as she looked over to Jean, who had a lack of surprise on her face unlike almost everyone else present. The librarian let her lips turn up into a subtle smile. “Well, you seem to have an idea of what Klee’s talking about, Jean. Mind enlightening the rest of us?”

Jean looked from the Knights towards Klee, and then looked at you. She looked a little stressed out — which was, unfortunately, normal — so you decided to explain the situation in her stead.

“Amber, Eula, you’re both right!” You smiled as you looked over all the Knights. “Christmas is a holiday from another world. I told Klee about it, she wanted to celebrate it, and so here we are!”

“A holiday from another world…” Kaeya had a look of interest in his eye. “How intriguing.”

Amber raised her hand, bringing attention to herself as you looked at her. “What’s it like, Your Grace? It’s probably different from any of the holidays that we have here in Mondstadt, isn’t it?”

“Eh…” You thought for a moment, putting a finger up to your chin. “...Christmas is mainly just a time to gather with loved ones to give gifts, eat good food, and… well, just spend time with one another. That’s the simplest way I can explain it, at least; does that make sense to everybody?”

Lisa chuckled, the smile on her lips softening. “Sounds like it shares quite a few similarities with some festivities we have. I think everyone here gets the picture that you set up, Your Grace.”

“Good! So, as Klee said earlier, she wanted to do something called “Secret Santa” with you guys.” You looked over the group of Knights, taking in all of their faces. “It’s an activity some workplaces do around Christmas, so having the Knights — well, the Knights that’re vessels — participate in this particular one seemed pretty obvious, especially when I told Klee about it.”

“What kind of activity is it, Your Grace?” Jean still looked a bit frazzled. “As much as I’d like to help Klee and you celebrate Christmas, having so many Knights occupied at once would be…”

“Don’t worry, Jean.” You sent a smile to her, hoping to reassure her worries and sooth her stress even a little. “This activity won’t take long. Basically, everyone participating will have to pull out a name from a hat — all the names of the participants will be written on slips of paper — and have to get them a present before the Christmas party that’ll take place in a couple of weeks. Oh, and you can’t tell anyone else the name that you pulled. That’s the “Secret” part of “Secret Santa”.”

“We…” Mika averted his gaze nervously. “...need to get a present for someone else?”

Sucrose fiddled with her fingers. “Based on a random drawing…?”

Amber smiled, her hands clenched in front of her. “Oh, that sounds like it could be fun!”

“Yes, but it could also be quite a difficult task-” Eula glanced around at the other Knights before looking at Amber. “-if you happen to draw someone that you’re not that well-acquainted with.”

“Well… I know that I just said you can’t tell anyone else who you pulled, but since I won’t be participating in the actual activity, you can come and ask me for gift ideas if you struggle with coming up with your own. I’ll be able to keep the secret.” You scanned the Knights with your eyes, a smile still on your lips. “So… is everybody in? You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to, but the more people that do, the more fun it’ll be. Just don’t feel pressured to, okay?”

The Knights glanced around at each other briefly before looking at you and Klee again.

Albedo nodded. “Very well. I see no reason not to, especially if Klee wants us to participate.”

Sucrose glanced at Albedo, before giving a short nod towards you as well. “O-Okay…”

“You can count on Eula and me to join too!” Amber smiled at Eula, the Spindrift Knight giving a slight nod, before she looked at you again. “It sounds like a lot of fun, so we couldn’t miss out!”

Lisa hummed. “...I have no objections either. This doesn’t seem like it’ll be too much work…”

Noelle straightened her posture when your gaze traveled over to her, her hands folded politely in front of her. “If that’s what you desire, then I’ll join as well. It… does sound like fun, I admit.”

“A-Ah…” Mika still looked a bit nervous as he nodded. “Alright, I can do it. I’ll try my best…”

“I suppose that if everyone else is joining, it’d be a downer if I didn’t.” Kaeya had a smile on his lips, a glimmer of amusement in his eye. “So you can include me as a participant, Your Grace.”

Jean let out a sigh. “...okay, I’m in too.”

“Yay!” Klee clapped in delight, smiling brightly. “All of Klee’s friends are joining!”

It took no time at all for the slips of paper bearing all of the Knights’ names to be created, all of which were then dumped into Klee’s hat, the Spark Knight having offered it to you happily. You tossed it like a salad for a few seconds, mixing them together, before handing it back to Klee.

“Alright, everyone. Make sure to choose one slip of paper, and keep the name a secret.”

The sight of Klee going around to each of the Knights, each one reaching a hand into her hat and grabbing a slip of paper, was heartwarming, in a way; the young girl in red was giggling as she received smile after smile from the Knights when she offered her hat to them, and the air in the room felt lighthearted as everyone received their targets for the activity. Some of the Knights were quite good at keeping who they got a secret — looking straight ahead with poker faces or a casual smile — while you noticed some of the others glancing around, likely at their targets.

“Everyone has a slip?” You saw everyone nod in response to you, a piece of paper in one of their hands that they put away safely. “Good. Then you’ve all got until the party to get a gift for whoever you pulled, and don’t be afraid to ask me for help if you need it. You’re all dismissed!”

Your attention was pulled away from Klee putting her hat back on by two figures you noticed approaching in your peripheral vision, and you looked up to see they were Mika and Sucrose.

“...need help, you two?”

Mika and Sucrose looked at each other for a moment before focusing on you.

“Yes, please, if you will.” Sucrose adjusted her glasses as she averted her eyes from you, her ears twitching a bit. “I’m afraid that I’m… not quite sure what to get for who I pulled, s-so…”

“Neither am I.” Mika rubbed the back of his head, also averting his gaze from you. “I’ve never really interacted too much with the person I pulled, and I’m afraid I might make a bad choice…”

“It’s okay.” You smiled and glanced between the both of them. “We’ve got plenty of time before the party, and I’ll make sure to help the both of you pick out good gifts for your respective pulls.”

Sucrose let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks so much, Your Grace. I’m sorry if this is a bother…”

“Yes, thank you very much.” Mika smiled slightly. “I hope that I’m not being a bother, either…”

You let out a chuckle, placing your hands on your hips. “Don’t worry, you two will never be a bother to me, and I offered to help with picking out gifts for a reason. It’s what I’m here for.”

The sensation of someone tugging on your sleeve caught your attention, and you looked down to see Klee looking up at you. You smiled at her before you looked at Mika and Sucrose again.

“I’ll meet up with you guys later to pick out gifts, okay? Just try and give it some thought by yourselves first, and then I’ll go over it individually with each of you in a few days’ time, okay?”

Mika and Sucrose nodded, looking a little relieved, as you let Klee drag you to the next activity.

- - - - -

“J-Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle… all the… way…?”

“It’s okay, Barbara. There’s no need to get so stressed.”

You were both amused yet concerned as you watched Barbara try to memorize the Christmas carols you told her about; you could see how tense her shoulders were, and could hear how her voice shook ever so slightly as she gave the carols a go, the melody enchanting yet unsteady.

“Your singing’s the best, Miss Barbara!” Klee sent a bright smile up towards the shining idol of Mondstadt, her eyes sparkling. “The Christmas carols sound so pretty when you sing them!”

“Ah, do they…? I feel like I’m singing them all wrong…”

“Don’t worry, you only just learned them.” You smiled at Barbara, trying to reassure her, even just a bit. “And caroling is going to be a group activity. You won’t have to sing them alone, ‘kay?”

Barbara blinked a few times, her eyes widened with surprise. “Huh?”

“Yeah! Like me, for example. I’ll be singing with you!”

“...h-huh?!”

That somehow seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as evidenced by how Barbara clasped her hands together, the nervous aura around her only growing instead of lessening. Her form began to tremble a bit where she stood, your smile faltering as her breathing began to quicken as well.

Klee tugged on the deaconess’s frock. “It’ll be okay, Miss Barbara! Klee will be singing too!”

Barbara snapped out of it as she looked down at Klee. “Oh, you’ll be singing as well?”

“Mmm-hmm!” Klee nodded, letting go of Barbara’s frock and instead placing her hands on her hips. “And all of our friends are going to too! So you don’t have to be scared, Miss Barbara!”

“...you make it seem so easy.” Barbara’s eyes flickered towards you for a second, before she closed her eyes and let out a breath. “I can’t help but feel nervous, but I’ll try to get it together.”

Klee giggled before turning towards you. “How many Christmas carols are you gonna teach us, Your Grace? Klee isn’t sure how many everyone’ll be able to learn before we have the party…”

The Spark Knight had a point that you thought about for a moment; there was only so much time before the Christmas party, and everyone had a limit to how many carols they would be able to memorize before then. It would be best for you to just stick to a few of the simpler ones this year, especially since you were the one who had to teach them to all of the party guests.

“About… three or four, I think.” You nodded to yourself, and refocused your gaze down on Klee, who was still smiling up at you. “I’ve taught you guys “Jingle Bells”, so… maybe I can also teach you guys “Deck the Halls”, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, and… also “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I think that’d be a good selection for Mondstadt’s first official Christmas celebration.”

You looked over at Barbara, who appeared to be a little calmer now as she did a few breathing exercises. “They’re all on the simple and repetitive side, so learning them should be very easy.”

“That sounds fine.” Barbara nodded, determination in her gaze. “I’ll do my best, Your Grace.”

Klee bounced on the balls of her feet happily, her hands raised. “Yeah, we’ll do our best!”

“Ah, keep your voice down, Klee.” You chuckled. “We’re outside, but still near the Church.”

“O-Oh, right, hehe.”

- - - - -

The kitchen smelled like heaven, the countertop covered in several types of Christmas goodies of varying quality; it was like a dessert buffet with all kinds of cookies, cakes, candies, and more.

“Thanks again for helping us, Noelle.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure, Your Grace.”

Klee overlooked the counter from the step-stool that she stood on, an excited glimmer in her eyes. “Wow…! There’s so many treats! Do people really get to have all of this for Christmas?”

“Of course!” You picked up a chocolate chip cookie, which was still warm. “Sweets are a huge part of Christmas, like leaving out milk and cookies for Santa on the night before Christmas.”

“Is that like sharing wine with Barbatos during Weinlesefest?”

You paused for a moment, taking a bite of the cookie in your hand before you shrugged, a smile on your face. “Yeah, I guess it’s similar to that. Santa loves cookies like Barbatos loves wine.”

“Your Grace, will this be satisfactory?” Noelle’s soft voice guided your attention back over to her, her posture being straightened just slightly when your gaze landed on her form. Her hands were politely folded in front of her, bringing some of your focus to her apron, which was unsurprisingly as clean as it had been at the start of this baking session. “I can continue baking if you’d like.”

“No, no… this’ll be good for now. I just wanted Klee to see what some Christmas goodies were like.” You finished the chocolate chip cookie in your hand, and wiped your hands on your apron, dusting off some of the flour that was on it. “But, since we’ll definitely need these sorts of treats at the Christmas party later this month, would you be up to make more when the time comes?”

“Anything for you, Your Grace.”

Noelle gave a small bow, before she turned her attention to cleaning the kitchen.

“Hey, Klee… do you think we should build gingerbread houses at the party?”

“They make houses out of gingerbread for Christmas?” Klee looked up at you with wide eyes, her mouth open in awe. “Wow, that must take a lot of gingerbread. Do people live in them?”

You held a hand up to your mouth, stifling a laugh and taking a moment to compose yourself before you shook your head. “No, Klee, they don’t. Gingerbread houses are small, kind of like dollhouses, and decorated with icing and candy. Building them is half of the fun, and then eating them afterwards is the other half of the fun. Oh, showing off your house to others is also fun…!”

Klee turned to look at the wide array of handmade candies on the counter, clearly contemplating how she could use them as decorations. Her focus was only broken when you began picking up plates of the goodies you made with Noelle, her gaze moving to the smile you kept on your face.

“Come on, Klee. Let’s clean up. We don’t want to make Noelle do all the work, right?”

“Okay!”

“H-Huh? Ah, Your Grace! That’s not necessary!”

- - - - -

“So, you’re saying that I’m supposed to write a letter to some strange old man that I don’t even know and just… get what I want?” Diona scoffed, placing her hands on her hips and turning her head away. “That sounds totally ridiculous, like some scam that a boozehound would fall for.”

“Aw… no, it’s really true!” Klee clenched her hands in front of her chest. “Their Grace said so!”

Diona looked at you from the corner of her eye for a moment, before she let out a “hmph”, and turned her head to face you and Klee. “Well… I guess that Their Grace wouldn’t lie, so… fine.”

The sounds of cats lazing about and cards being shuffled surrounded you and the two children as your group settled at one of the tables in the Cat’s Tail, though it was considerably less lively than normal due to it being around noon. Klee and Diona both had paper and crayons sitting in front of them, as well as an envelope for each of them to seal their letter when they were done.

“So…” Diona furrowed her eyebrows. “...what exactly are we supposed to do?”

You looked between the two young girls, chuckling with a smile on your lips. “Writing a letter to Santa is easy. All you have to do is write down what you want; just… list it all out on the paper.”

“And this “Santa” guy will make it happen?”

“...eh, try to keep it small-scale, Diona. Santa gives gifts, he doesn’t destroy anything.”

Diona grumbled to herself, her tail thumping against the cushion of her seat in annoyance, but she eventually started to write on the paper in front of her. The Spark Knight also got to work on her own letter, filling her paper with color as she scribbled out what she wanted for Christmas.

And, after they were done, they folded their letters and put them into their envelopes.

“Alright, now you just need to address them to the North Pole.”

Diona and Klee looked at you, curiosity in their eyes, before Diona raised an eyebrow.

“...to where?”

“The North Pole. That’s where Santa Claus lives, and where his workshop is located.”

Klee began to write the address on her envelope — simply “The North Pole”, in big bold letters — while Diona continued to stare at you, an unconvinced frown making its way onto her face.

“How exactly are these gonna get to Santa, anyway? He’s in a completely different world.”

“I’ll deliver them myself.” You carefully took Klee’s letter once she handed it to you, your fingers clasped around the envelope. “No postal service in Teyvat could get there, but I can handle it.”

“...okay.” Diona scribbled on her envelope and handed it to you. “But I still have my doubts.”

You held the two letters carefully, and chuckled again as you looked between the two kids.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Santa will deliver!”

- - - - -

The gloves on your hands did little to keep out the cold, already covered in a layer of snow as you patted the icy substance thoroughly in your quest to form the base of your future snowman.

Dragonspine was a scary place — you would never traverse it alone in your current state — but the scenery at its edges was just the right amount of “winter wonderland” for you, and the sound of the younger Mondstadtian characters in the surrounding area only bettered that atmosphere.

“Your Grace, you should be careful. Sheer cold can be harmful, even to you.”

Albedo was standing by your side, completely unfazed by the cold; this place was pretty much his natural habitat at this point. His voice held slight concern, though his face remained calm.

“Huh? Nonsense, I’m fine. I ate some goulash before coming here; it’ll keep me warm.”

“You’re shivering, Your Grace.”

“...okay, fine.”

You moved over to the small fire that was built nearby, noticing that Bennett and Fischl were already there; the former was completely drenched and shivering as he huddled close to the fire, while the latter and her night raven familiar were completely fine. You reached your hands out to the fire to warm yourself, your fingers feeling a bit better, and looked over at Bennett.

“What happened to you?”

“Ah…” Bennett smiled, a hint of embarrassment laced within it. “Well… I just, uh…”

“He who has been born the most unfortunate suffered a great moment of slither-” Fischl caught your attention, her tone of voice confident. “-and was plunged into the beck of this biting berg.”

You stared at Fischl for a moment before shifting your gaze over to Oz.

“...the unlucky fellow had slipped on the snow and fell into the river.”

“Oh…!” You raised a hand to your mouth, covering the growing smile on your lips as you stifled a laugh. “Yeah… I guess your bad luck would spring up like that. Are you having fun, though?”

“Huh?” The adventurer tilted his head. “I… guess so?”

“Then that’s all that matters!”

Your attention shifted to Klee and Razor when you noticed them approaching the fire, sticks and stones in their arms. You even spotted some pinecones sitting within Razor’s stash of materials.

“We got the things for the snowman, Your Grace!” Klee bounced with each step, only coming to a stop in front of you. Her feet slid a bit from the snow. “And I found this really cool stick! Look!”

Klee adjusted the items in her arms, before holding up a stick with one hand.

You had to admit: it was a really cool stick.

“This good?” Razor held out his stash of materials to you, allowing you to look over all of it; he had a lot more in his arms than Klee did. “We hunt for what you said, and… this is what we find.”

“Of course!” You nodded, looking up at Razor with a smile. “You both did great!”

“Ah… good.”

Razor looked pleased with your praise; if he had a tail, it would definitely be wagging right now.

With a supply of materials now at your disposal, you began to work with the others to decorate the snowman; the base was all your doing, so you stepped back to let the others take the lead.

“Ore of the darkest night shall make quite a pair of eyes, would it not, my dear companion?”

“Klee’s stick can make a good arm! Oh, it’s hard to reach…”

“Let me, Klee. And this other stick can complete the pair.”

“I… do like this?”

“A pinecone for the nose? Neat! Gah, the rocks for the buttons keep slipping out of my fingers.”

The smile on your face grew as you watched the others work together to form a masterpiece.

“Wow… it looks amazing, everyone!”

It was a jumbled mess, but it was a real product of togetherness; each part was placed on by a different person to make a whole creation — small chunks of iron for the eyes, a pinecone as a nose, sticks for the arms, and rocks for the buttons. It was a shame that you didn’t think to bring any clothes for the snowman to wear, though, but that didn’t hinder the final masterpiece at all.

You and the others took in your combined creation in silent glory for a bit, and then you spoke.

“...so, has everybody had enough snow for today?”

There was a resounding “yes” from the group, and you shifted your gaze over to take note of their current conditions: Bennett had icicles starting to form on his damp clothes, Razor kept his arms close to his body as he shivered like a wolf pup, Fischl denied feeling cold — although Oz pointed out that she had complained earlier about not bringing warmer clothing to this outing — and Klee mentioned that the snow dampened the effect of her bombs. Albedo just appeared to be ready to go whenever everyone else was; he was clearly the one least affected by the cold.

“Then let’s head back to the city for some hot cocoa! Who wants whipped cream and sprinkles?”

“Oh! Oh! Klee does!”

- - - - -

“I’ll take a Gray Valley Sunset, Master Diluc!”

“You… do not need to address me as “Master”, Your Grace…”

“Aw, why not? Everybody else does!”

You planted yourself onto one of the barstools as you watched Diluc get to work behind the counter, the tavern being just as lively as it was most nights; luckily, most of the Angel’s Share patrons were too drunk to pay any attention to you, granting you a rare moment to just relax.

“My, you look rather tired, Your Grace.” Kaeya was sitting on a barstool next to you, leaning on his elbow. “I assume Klee has been dragging you around in her excitement this past week?”

“Yep!” You nodded, immediately grabbing your drink when Diluc placed it in front of you on the counter. “But I don’t regret telling her about Christmas. I’ve been having a lot of fun with all of it.”

The barstool on your other side squeaked as someone sat upon it, and you noticed a bard clad in green leaning into your peripheral vision, a smile set on his lips and a twinkle within his eyes.

“Oh? “Christmas”? What might that be, Your Grace?”

“A holiday from another world. I told Klee about it, and she’s been absolutely obsessed.”

“Ah, so that’s what you’ve been doing these past few days.” Rosaria was sitting on the other side of Kaeya, an alcoholic beverage already securely in her hand. Her expression was set in her usual disinterested frown, though the way she kept her eyes on you showed otherwise. “I heard that Barbara almost passed out when you requested her to sing… “Christmas carols”?”

You let out a short nervous laugh, before starting to drink your juice; it was cold and sweet.

“Oho?” Venti’s interest peaked as he leaned closer to you, the twinkle in his eyes having grown at the mere mention of your musical exploits. “If you need someone to sing for you, Your Grace, you’ve got the three-time winner of the “Most Popular Bard of Mondstadt'” title at your service.”

“If you want to carol with us, you’re totally free to, Venti!” You smiled at the bard before letting out a sigh, and you set your drink on the counter. “But, even though it’s been fun, we’ve still got to tackle the issue of preparing the Christmas party. Klee’s been looking forward to it since day one of our festivities, but I’m not sure where to begin with it. We’d need a place big enough for all of the guests, and we’d need to decorate it. Then there’s the food too. It'll be a lot of work.”

“So you need a place for the party?” Kaeya took a hold of his own drink, bringing the cup up to his mouth. “I’m sure the Knights would let you use their headquarters for the party, no problem.”

“The Knights of Favonius Headquarters…?” You thought for a moment, before you shook your head. “No, that wouldn’t work. Plus, I’d feel like it’d be… distracting to the Knights not invited.”

Rosaria sipped her drink. “Perhaps the Church, then? I doubt the Sisters would refuse you.”

“Absolutely not.” You hardly hesitated as you answered, and shook your head again. “The idea of having a Christmas party in the Favonius Cathedral… doesn’t exactly feel all that right to me.”

“Agreed. The Church is a bit too serious a location for such an occasion.” Venti nodded, placing his empty cup on the counter; if you were keeping count correctly, he had just downed his fourth drink. “I’d say this tavern is home to a much more suitable atmosphere for a joyous celebration!”

“...well, while Angel’s Share would be able to serve as a good space for the party-” You let your gaze wander around the tavern, taking in the sight of the many customers already drunk at their tables. “-it’s not really the type of place for a Christmas party to be held. I mean, maybe it would work if it was an adult-only event, but this party is gonna have people of all ages in attendance.”

The sound of Diluc clearing his throat caught your attention, and you looked towards him.

“Your Grace… if you’d so like, you may use Dawn Winery’s manor for your party.”

You perked up as you listened to Diluc, your lips turning up into a bright smile.

“Oh, that’ll be perfect! I love you, Master Diluc!”

The sound of glass shattering rang out from behind the counter, the remains of a glass on the floor as alcohol seeped into the wood. Diluc stood by the mess, a cleaning rag held in one hand and emptiness in the other; the warm tavern lights made you uncertain of the flush on his face.

“A-Ah! I’m sorry, Master Diluc!”

You continued to apologize to Diluc as he bent down to clean up the broken glass, his face now hidden by his bangs as he kept his head tilted down. Kaeya was trying — and failing — to hold back a chuckle, and Rosaria just silently sipped on her drink, her gaze averted from everything.

Venti let out a whine, his hand tightly gripping your sleeve as he tugged it. “Oh, that’s just not fair, Your Grace. You can’t say something like that without blessing me with such words too…”

“I-I just got excited by what Diluc said!” You glanced at Venti briefly, your eyes widened, before you looked at Diluc again, your face warm. “It’s just… thanks for letting me use the manor…?”

“It’s fine, Your Grace.”

Diluc stood up after he finished cleaning, his head turned away from you as if to allow him to continue hiding his face; even so, it was still obvious to you that he must still be embarrassed.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but just be more careful next time.”

You let out a relieved sigh and nodded, smiling at him.

“Will do, Master Diluc!”

- - - - -

You couldn’t help but take in a deep breath as the pine tree was set up in the manor, your hands on your hips as your chest expanded. You took a moment before you finally released the breath.

“Ah, the sweet smell of nature…”

It was a few days before the Christmas party was scheduled to take place, and you were doing some early decorating — namely, the big stuff that couldn’t wait until just before the big event.

And that included the tree.

“So…” You looked over at Diluc, who stood beside you. “I’m assuming that there aren’t already ornaments available to decorate with, but we can make do. Oh! Maybe we could have everyone make ornaments at the party and then decorate the tree together? That’d be super festive! But, in the meantime, we could at least put some popcorn on it right now to start, so it isn’t just bare.”

You were met with nothing but silence as Diluc looked from the tree to you.

“People put… popcorn… on trees for Christmas?”

“Wow! It’s so tall!”

Klee ran up to the tree, her head tilted all the way back as she looked up at it.

“Of course! The bigger, the better!” You walked up to Klee and gently nudged the Spark Knight away from the tree. “We’ll have to keep any and all fire hazards away from it, though. Okay?”

“Okay! Klee will be super careful!”

You looked back at Diluc. “Thanks again for letting us have the party here. It’s really so perfect!”

“It’s no problem, Your Grace. Just let me know if you need anything else.”

You felt as if you were a kid again as you ran around with Klee and got things set up, sharing the experience of choosing what should go where and what looked best with the young girl in red. You even decorated some of the exterior of the manor, not just the interior, though, due to the size of the building, you and Klee could only really work with the entrance outside the door.

In lieu of strings of Christmas lights, lanterns and Crystalflies were used to light up the desired area. The lanterns hung up on the wall, blending into the natural look of the manor — when the daylight faded, they would definitely stand out more — and the Crystalflies were caught in the vineyard, just to be gently guided to rest on the poles near the front door, their wings fluttering.

“...we’ll probably need to guide these little guys back here just before the party.” You watched as the Crystalflies fluttered their wings again, unable to stay still for long where you placed them. “I don’t think they’ll just… stay here for the next few days. They’re itching to fly again, that’s clear.”

There was a Crystalfly resting on Klee’s cap, only flying away as she tilted her head up.

“Do you think we’ll be able to find them again?”

You nodded. “Of course we will! These Crystalflies like Dawn Winery as much as the people of Mondstadt do. You can always find them around here somewhere, fluttering about the grapes.”

The Crystalflies resting on the wooden poles flew off into the vineyard, one by one, as you and Klee continued decorating. You wrapped ribbons of different colors — red, green, and white — around the poles, and draped some down from the balcony above, trying to make it coherent.

“...this place definitely says, “there’s a party here”, at least.”

“It looks great! And it’s so pretty!” Klee bounced on the balls of her feet as she looked up at the ribbons, before she looked at you. “Is there anything else to do before the party, Your Grace?”

You thought for a moment.

“Well… I think we’ve done everything we can right now. The tree’s main decorations can wait until the party, and the popcorn will be prepared tomorrow, but, besides that, everything else is ready. The manor’s staff are helping to take care of the food — and being compensated for their time by Diluc, of course — and Noelle will take care of the desserts for the party later. We’ll help her with that when the time comes, but, for now, we’re done. Why, still want to decorate more?”

Klee put a finger to her chin, before she began walking around to inspect the work you and her had done. The Spark Knight took in the sight of all the decorations you had put up, everything in the interior and the exterior of the manor, and her eyes sparkled as her gaze scanned over all of it. The decorations were a bit generic to be honest, only the presence of the — currently bare — pine tree making it clear that Christmas was what was being celebrated, but it was a good effort.

You worked with what you had, and during the party, it was sure to come together fully.

“Klee thinks it’s perfect, Your Grace! …but, um… maybe we could hang up more ribbons?”

Yeah.

This would all come together nicely.

- - - - -

“I’m so sorry I’m late! I had some trouble getting here…”

Bennett had an embarrassed look on his face, his form slumped over as he stood in front of you. His hair was ruffled up, some sticks and leaves poking out, and his clothes were slightly burnt, which made the water dripping off of him to form a puddle under him more noteworthy.

You smiled slightly at him. “I can see that… but, don’t worry, you’re not late at all.”

“H-Huh?”

“Ah, the man cursed with misfortune has arrived before the Prinzessin?”

You and Bennett turned to look at Fischl as she approached, Oz and Mona accompanying her.

“Hmph, this is truly a most unexpected eventuality, though not one unwelcome.”

Mona looked at Bennett with interest, her gaze scanning everything from his singed clothing to the water at his feet. “I must admit, it’s very unusual. I’d say you had a rare stroke of luck, but…”

“...what?”

Bennett looked between them and you, before rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

“I’m so confused… my invitation said that the party started an hour ago.”

The adventurer dug through his pockets until he eventually pulled out his invitation; the paper was completely drenched, though the ink was just legible enough to still be able to be read.

“But our invitations say the party will start soon.” Mona pulled out her own invitation, and took Bennett’s to compare the times. “See? Your invitation shows it starting a whole hour early.”

Bennett took his invitation back. “That doesn’t make any sense, I…”

You gained a slight sense of pressure as everyone turned to look at you. “Oh… I put an earlier time on Bennett’s invitation to account for his bad luck. You know… so he’d get here on time.”

There was a slight pause, everyone staring at you as you stared back at them.

And then Bennett let out a groan.

“Ugh, that’s so embarrassing…!”

“But it’s also quite smart.” Mona smiled at the unlucky adventurer. “You’d likely be suffering out in the wilderness right now if Their Grace kept the correct time on your invitation, wouldn’t you?”

“...y-yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Hey, I’m just glad you’re here on time, Benny.” You smiled and gestured towards the manor’s entrance. “Why don’t you all head on inside? There’s some refreshments set out already, and it seems like everyone else will be arriving soon enough. I’ll be out here greeting them, of course.”

Fischl looked at Bennett, whose embarrassment was still cooling off. “Let us continue forward, accursed companion. It would be wise to preen thyself before the rest of the due guests arrive.”

“Right.”

The two members of the Adventurer’s Guild headed inside the manor with Oz following behind them closely, the familiar taking care when he flew past the ribbons that adorned the entrance.

“Um, Your Grace?” Mona caught your attention, a hesitant look in her eyes. “If there… happens to be any… leftovers at the end of the party, will the guests be permitted to take some home?”

“You can take as much as you can carry.”

“Oh, thank you ever so much, Your Grace!”

- - - - -

“A party held at Dawn Winery… with no alcohol? You’re so cruel, Your Grace.”

Venti had slight disbelief on his face, even with his lips turned up into a smile, while Diona had hers turned up into a smug grin, her hands on her hips in triumph as she stood next to the bard.

“Well, I think Their Grace is only showing how great They are by keeping that stuff away. Why do you boozehounds always need alcohol to have a good time, anyway? It’s funner without it!”

“Diona’s right. At least, when it comes to this occasion.”

The bartender let out a chuckle at your approval, her smug grin growing towards the bard.

“Besides, this’ll be the first Christmas you’ll experience. You should experience it sober.”

“...not even a drop, Your Grace?”

“You’re gonna have to go dry tonight, Venti.”

Diona walked into the manor with a proud gait, her tail and head held up to the sky, as Venti let out a whine, his shoulders dropping. He only lasted like that for a second before he perked up.

“Alright, Your Grace. I suppose going through a party without wine won’t be so bad…”

“Oh, is this a “no alcohol” kind of festivity?”

You turned to see Kaeya making his way up the path leading to the manor, a trio of his fellow knights — Albedo, Klee, and Sucrose — walking right behind him until they stopped near you.

“Yep. There’s non-alcoholic apple cider and grape juice instead.” Your gaze wandered down to the wrapped gifts in each of the Knights’ arms. “You can go and put the presents under the tree for later. The gift-giving will happen after everyone arrives and gets settled into the jolly vibes.”

Venti eyed the gifts. “Oh-ho? I wasn’t aware that there’d be presents at this party.”

“It’s for “Secret Santa”!” Klee held her gift up for Venti to see. “All the Knights are doing it!”

“And, don’t worry, all the non-Knights will also be getting gifts too-” You put a hand to your chest and smiled. “-courtesy of me. It wouldn’t be fair for some to get presents here and others to not.”

Sucrose adjusted the wrapped box in her arms. “W-Wow…”

Albedo hummed. “A gift from the Divine Creator would be quite an honor. I’m almost jealous…”

“Oh, there’s no reason to feel that way.” You shook your head slightly at him, the smile on your lips softening. “All the gifts you’ll find under the tree are labeled from “Santa”, not me, so nobody is really getting a gift from the “Divine Creator”, okay? Now get on inside and enjoy yourselves.”

- - - - -

There were a few more greetings you got through — Barbara and Rosaria who arrived together, and Razor who arrived alone — before the last guests arrived: the other invited members of the Knights of Favonius — sans Noelle, who arrived hours before the party began to help prepare.

“I hope you’re all feeling merry!” You greeted them at the entrance to the manor, a smile still on your lips. “Because with all of you here, the party can finally start! Oh, it’s gonna be so fun…!”

“Apologies for taking so long, Your Grace.” Jean shifted the presents she carried in her arms, putting a hand to her chest. “I had some last minute duties that I had to attend to before being able to leave for the evening, due to so many of the Knights having to attend this party tonight.”

“It’s fine, no biggie.” You waved Jean’s concerns off. “I’m just glad you’re all here at all!”

Amber held up the wrapped gift she was holding to bring attention to it. “And we brought our “Secret Santa” gifts with us. Is there someplace that we should put them for now, Your Grace?”

“Under the tree.”

“Under the…” Eula raised an eyebrow in question. “...tree?”

You nodded. “There’s a pine tree set up inside; it’s called a “Christmas tree”. You put gifts under it until it’s time to hand them out and open them. It’s a classic Christmas tradition, a real staple.”

“Oh my, how quaint.” Lisa didn’t have a gift in her hand, which explained why Jean was carrying two in her arms. “Everything you say about Christmas just makes it more and more interesting.”

“I’m glad!”

Jean, Lisa, Amber, and Eula went inside at your gesture, with Mika tailing them.

Mika looked at you with a bashful smile, his present held carefully in his arms, and he glanced between you and it before his gaze settled on it. “T-Thanks again, for helping me, Your Grace.”

“Of course.” You lightly patted Mika on the back. “Now, come on. Let’s join the others.”

- - - - -

‘Twas the night of the party And all through the manor, The atmosphere was hearty And it was quite banner.

…and that was enough rhyming for now.

Though it took everyone a quick moment to familiarize themselves with what a Christmas party was like, it didn’t take long for the party to really start. Klee’s enthusiasm was a driving force for everyone else’s, especially anyone who might still have been hesitant about the whole thing.

The tree was finally decorated aside from strings of popcorn, the ornaments the product of a group activity where you helped everyone make their own; the branches were filled to the brim with unique creations that would last to the next time that a tree would need to be decorated.

You could hardly compliment Noelle and the manor’s staff enough for all their work on the food, and neither could anyone else. You swore Noelle would faint from how red her face had gotten from the praise, the Knights’ maid continuing to be modest about all the effort she had put in.

The various gingerbread houses were fun to see; everyone had varying ideas on what it meant to build a gingerbread house — some went with a more “normal” appearance with their designs, while others took more creative liberties with their edible materials. Diona had even based her’s on her own house, with little gingerbread people of herself and her dad put on the frosting lawn.

And then caroling was an experience.

Barbara and Klee helped you teach everyone else the carols you had picked out. Venti picked them up quickly — which you expected — and Rosaria opted out of caroling altogether — which you also expected. Diluc also preferred not to sing, as did Mika and Sucrose, but everyone else laughed their way through the carols, the sound of their voices together being not too shabby.

The most anticipated event of the party, the gift exchange, happened when everyone was finally settled in, and the Knights went around to give each other their gifts. The anonymous part of the identities of the givers fell apart during that part, the receivers gaining surprise at learning about who had served as their Secret Santa alongside the gifts themselves, though the biggest of the surprises had to be Mika’s and Sucrose’s when they realized that they were each other’s Santa.

The remaining party guests got a gift handpicked by you.

You kept your mouth shut as they all tried to figure out who had actually gotten them the gift — Kaeya, Albedo, Klee, Sucrose, and Venti also keeping quiet about it for you — and just let them question each other. The joy among the confusion was what really made it feel special to you.

When the gift-giving came to a close, you surprised the younger Mondstadtians with stockings to hang over the fireplace. Klee, Diona, Razor, and Fischl each got to put up their own stocking, but you helped Bennett with his, as having it accidentally get caught on fire would be a downer.

You still had extras, though… just in case.

And when the sun began to set in the distance, the party soon came to a quiet end… kind of.

“We gotta leave milk and cookies out for Santa.” Klee guided the other younger characters to the table that had been set up near the fireplace, where they set down a plate of cookies and a glass of milk upon the wooden surface. “It’s sorta like sharing wine with the Anemo Archon.”

“And then our hosiery hung above the embers shall be filled with his largesse on the morrow?”

“Yep!” Klee nodded towards Fischl, a smile on her face. “That’s what Their Grace told Klee.”

“But it won’t happen unless you’re all asleep.” You looked between the five youngsters. “Santa doesn’t come when you’re awake. He only comes to leave presents in the middle of the night.”

Diona’s tail flicked behind her. “That sounds kind of fishy, but if that’s what you say, then okay.”

“So…” Razor thought for a moment. “...Razor and friends go to sleep now?”

“That should be easy.” Bennett rubbed the back of his head before he stretched his arms out above his head, a smile on his face. “It’s been pretty exciting all day, so I’m a bit tuckered out.”

“Diluc’s been kind enough to have prepared rooms for you guys tonight.” You gestured towards the staircase and towards the second floor of the manor. “So feel free to get settled in, okay?”

“Yay!” Klee clapped her hands together. “Let’s go to sleep so Santa will come!”

You watched as the younger characters headed upstairs, disappearing from your sight, before you turned your attention to the other guests. The adults were all getting ready to leave, either gathering up the presents that they had gotten or grabbing leftovers to take home with them.

“I’d say have a safe trip, but I’m sure your group is the safest it could possibly be.”

The characters not staying at the manor — meaning everyone but the youngsters who were staying the night, Diluc who lived here, and Noelle who was staying to help clean up — were going to be heading back to the city, the majority of the group being comprised of vessels that were members of the Knights of Favonius. You knew anybody would feel safe with all of them.

Jean looked at you, her eyes tired despite her smile. “Apologies for not staying for longer.”

“It’s okay. I know you guys can’t just all be away from the city for long at the same time.”

“But we should definitely do this again sometime!” Amber had a smile on her face, still full of energy despite how late it was. “It was so much fun, Your Grace! This holiday was a blast!”

“I agree.” Eula held both her and Amber’s gifts in her arms. “It was quite the get-together.”

You waved to the group as you watched them leave the manor and start their journey towards the city, the Knights forming the edges of the group. Barbara was within the protective circle of the group with Mona right by her side, the astrologist carrying much more than she arrived with in terms of food. The only one not in the group was Rosaria, who left a bit earlier on her own.

The group soon vanished into the dark of night, the manor now much quieter than before.

You let out a small sigh as Venti approached you, and briefly glanced at Noelle and Diluc as they — and the manor’s staff — got busy cleaning up the party before focusing on the bard.

“Well, Your Grace, I’d say this party of yours was a huge success!”

“I’m glad it was!” You gestured for Venti to follow you. “Now, mind helping me fill the stockings?”

“Oh?” Venti raised an eyebrow as he followed you over to the fireplace, an interested glimmer in his eyes. “I thought Santa was supposed to be the one to fill those once everyone was asleep?”

“Spoiler alert: Santa is more of an… idea, rather than a real person. Don’t tell the kids, though.”

“So, that’s how it is, huh…?”

Noelle handed you the bag of prepared goodies as she passed by, the action of it exchanging hands seeming like more of an instinct as she focused on gathering discarded wrapping paper.

The bag was like a smaller version of Santa’s bags in your eyes, and you sifted through it to begin sorting the items into each stocking, taking great care to divide everything in it equally.

“Of course. The magic of Christmas is all about children’s hopes and beliefs… oh!”

You grabbed a cookie from the plate near the fireplace and stuffed it into Venti’s mouth.

“Here, eat a few. It’s “proof” that Santa visited.”

Venti grabbed the cookie out of his mouth, coughing a bit before he chuckled. “Thank you for this honor, Your Grace. Though you could be a bit more gentle when feeding me, you know.”

“Less talking, more eating, Venti.”

It didn’t take you too long to fill the stockings with treats and items tailored to each youngster’s interests, and along with the Christmas tree, the stuffed stockings hung over the fireplace made the perfect little holiday scene, something that felt so foreign in this world yet so familiar to you.

So the party was done, with the kids into bed, And the Creator’s smile was on their face, spread. For a spoken last joy, with the bard to their right— “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

[fanfictwins]

SDR2 - Halloween Special 2023

Summary: “As the victim of an honestly moronic prank, you end up somewhere you’d rather not be. Your fear and annoyance keep you chugging along, but, man… you just want to go home.”

Word Count: ~12k

“Ugh, this is just the worst…”

The tapping of your shoes against the tiled floor echoed as you walked through the halls of the abandoned school building, your only source of light being your phone’s flashlight; the beam of light shook with each step you took, illuminating everything ahead of you — the cracked tiles of the floor, the peeling paint on the walls, the dust floating in the air. None of it was an ideal sight.

The thought of being stuck here, in a supposedly-haunted, crumbling old building, would have terrified you if you weren’t already annoyed by how you got into this situation in the first place.

It was more than obvious to you at this point that those so-called new “friends” of yours were anything but friendly, getting you to come here just to trap you inside because it was “funny”.

“I swear, when I get my hands on them-”

The sound of skittering behind you made you tense up, your mouth snapping shut as you swiftly turned on your heel with your phone pointed out to try to catch the source in the light. You felt an intense shiver run down your spine at the idea that rats were crawling around this place, an idea made worse when you thought about what else could be residing in such a dilapidated building.

“...okay, I need to get out of here soon or I’m going to lose it.”

You quickened your pace as you continued to make your way through the halls, checking each and every classroom you passed by in case any had a viable exit, but it appeared that all of the windows — all broken to various degrees of severity — had been boarded up. You had a pretty strong feeling that you would end up with a myriad of splinters and cuts across your body if you tried escaping through them, the rotting wood and jagged glass the opposite of an inviting exit.

Even if you were desperate to get out, you weren’t that desperate… yet.

- - - - -

You wandered around for a short while before you found yourself at the end of a hallway, where you were met with a large entryway with a sign stating that it led to the dorm area right next to it.

“Oh… so this school was one of those schools, huh? …fancy.”

You figured that there was a pretty good chance of there being some sort of fire escape within the dorm area, the image of whatever board of education that used to run the place wanting to make sure their students — the children of a bunch of rich and influential families, no doubt — were completely safe in every way possible floating around in your head, and you entered into the area with little hesitation. The sight that you were met with was nothing much, the edges of the beam from your phone’s flashlight soon trailing off into complete darkness, though the faint outlines of a few doorways located in your immediate surroundings didn’t escape your notice.

And then a sudden scent in the air caught your attention.

“What the…?”

The scent clashed heavily with where you were, being so warm and rich that it reminded you of what it felt like to settle down at the kitchen table for dinner as a child while the building that you were in was both dusty and musty to the point that just being in here was a health concern. Your initial confusion over the scent of cooked food soon melted into unease after a few seconds had passed, the presence of such deliciousness in a place this dank somehow being very unsettling.

But maybe the scent was wafting into the school through an opening somewhere.

That made it worth checking out.

You followed the trail with your nose, giving the air a few good sniffs as you veered to the right within the darkness of the dorm area, until you caught sight of light coming through the crack at the bottom of a door. You lowered your phone, turning off its flashlight, as you hurried through the door, and then came to a halt when you recognized the room as must being the dining hall.

There were tables and chairs placed about the area, a kitchen entrance on the other side from you, but the main attraction had to be the makings of a full spread that covered half of a table in the middle of the dining hall; that was obviously the source of the mouthwatering scent in the air.

“...yeah, okay, this is weird.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at the sight before you, before moving your attention to the source of light in the dining hall: large windows in place of one of the walls. Unlike all the other windows you had seen so far, the dining hall’s windows seemed to be mostly intact with just a few visible cracks here and there; that meant that you couldn’t use them to escape unless you took a chair and used it to smash through them, but that was a course of action you were hesitant to take.

You were hesitant… even if the sight of the sun setting past the horizon outside, the sky above becoming a stunning gradient of orange and red at the bottom to purple and blue at the top, was taunting you as you continued to be cut off from the glorious outdoors you now bore witness to.

Hesitant.

Yeah.

You let out a long hum of disappointment as you shifted your gaze away from the windows, now instead returning to look at the trays of food sitting in the middle of the dining hall, which were as much of a feast for the eyes as they were for the nose. You swallowed as you felt yourself begin to salivate a little as your eyes scanned over the various dishes present, though you knew better than to try sneaking a bite or two from the spread. You would probably end up turning into a pig or something if you did, and you were not taking that risk, no matter how tempting the food was.

The floor then came into view when a huge figure darted past you, its force knocking you to the ground. You let out a small groan as you pushed yourself up onto your knees, before looking to where the figure had run and came to a stop, which was in front of the table with the feast on it.

And you froze.

The figure was tall with a feminine body shape — for a couple of obvious reasons — but it was the several nonhuman characteristics you noticed as your eyes scanned over her that was what drew your attention: furry ears sitting atop her head of unkempt hair, claw-like hands attached to furry forearms, and a tall that relentlessly wagged behind her as she tore into a cooked chicken.

Despite having barreled past you to get into the dining hall, the canine-esque girl didn’t seem to notice you at all, being too busy devouring whatever she could get her paws on; various sauces and juices splattered down onto the table and the ground around her, some even dribbling down her chin and onto her clothes. The way she ate was more akin to a wild animal than to a person.

“A-Ah, Akane!”

The sound of a voice that had a thick Southern accent spoke from elsewhere in the dining hall, the mild panic within it unable to draw your gaze to its owner as you watched the girl — Akane, as the voice called her — down an entire party-sized platter of assorted meats and cheeses.

“I appreciate the enthusiasm about my cooking, but please leave some for the others!”

Akane stuffed a few more bites of food into her mouth before she spoke, her voice coming out completely muffled from how full her cheeks were. “Can’t you just make more if they want any?”

“I mean, I could-” The sound of metal trays being placed onto a table reached your ears as the voice paused for just the briefest moment before continuing. “-but you should still limit yourself.”

You finally managed to get back onto your feet after your shock faded slightly, though your heart was still beating a bit faster than you would have liked for it to, and you leaned on a nearby table to steady yourself before you directed your attention towards the source of the Southern voice.

He didn’t look nearly as threatening as Akane did — the fact that he was much shorter than her being a big reason as to why — though the sight of a pair of goat legs being where human legs should have been made your stomach churn. His attire consisted of a classic chef’s outfit on his human upper-half, with a red apron around his waist and a red handkerchief around his neck; to finish his ensemble, he had a tiny chef’s hat on his head with two horns poking out from his hair.

“Hey, you gonna eat that?”

You jolted out of your thoughts as Akane spoke again, and flinched after you looked over at her just to see her staring at you, the red sauce dripping down her chin making the sight of her look a lot worse than it actually was. You blinked before you looked down at the table you were using to keep your balance, your eyes drawn to the steaming plate of kebabs sitting right next to you.

“U-Uh… no…?”

“So I can have ‘em?”

You stared at Akane for a moment before you nodded your head, removing your shaking hands from the table and instead keeping them close to your chest. The wide grin that Akane gave you in response only made you more nervous as you saw the sharp canines she had in her mouth.

“Aw, nice!”

The kebabs never stood a chance as the canine-esque girl immediately made a beeline for the plate, everything but the iron skewers — which Akane tossed to the side — disappearing in the time that it took you to blink. She then resumed eating as if that entire interaction didn’t happen.

“Hmm? Who might you be?”

Your attention was grabbed by the half-goat man as he spoke, and you flinched again after you turned your head towards him just to see that he was now standing next to you. He was leaning forward as if to inspect you, one of his hands raised to his chin as the other rested on his hip; he let his eyes briefly wander you up and down, before they came to their final stop on your face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before…”

“I-I, um… I’m… nobody important?” You struggled to turn your lips up into a smile, your nerves still a bit shot as you took a shaky step back away from the chef. “Uh, I’m just… well… I-I, it’s…”

The chef let out a small chuckle, a smile coming to his face as he dropped his hand from his chin. “Now, now… no need to get nervous. It’s always exciting to meet new people, you know?”

His voice had an almost comforting quality to it as he spoke, though the fact that his Southern accent disappeared and was replaced with an accent that sounded a bit more posh made alarm bells ring out in your head. You couldn’t think of a single normal reason for a person to do that in a normal conversation, especially after he talked to Akane without doing anything like that at all.

“How about you relax with some of my delectable cooking? You won’t taste anything better!”

You shifted your gaze from the chef and towards the feast, seeing Akane still going ham with it as she devoured an actual cooked ham like it was nothing, before you looked at the chef again.

“...y-yeah, sorry, I’ll have to decline. I’d rather not get between that girl and her food.”

The chef looked over at Akane himself, his smile faltering as he furrowed his eyebrows and let out a small sigh; it only lasted for a moment, however, before his attention returned to you and a smile reappeared on his face. “Oh, don’t worry! I’ll just make an extra-special dish just for you.”

The way he said that made shivers run down your spine, and not in a good way.

“Nope. I’m leaving. Goodbye.”

Without waiting for a response, you turned on your heel and began to walk away, hearing the chef start to call out after you before you suddenly heard him yell at Akane about paying more attention to what she was putting in her mouth, the sound of gagging and silverware hitting the floor following after it. You just ignored the commotion and focused on leaving the dining hall.

- - - - -

The area outside the dining hall was no longer bathed in pitch-black darkness; the lighting that came from the ceiling was dim, but it was enough for you to actually see where you were going.

“Huh… I didn’t think that this place still had power, but…”

It was definitely the least surprising thing you had run into so far, though you chose not to focus too much on what you had witnessed just moments before as you looked around the small area, squinting your eyes to try to get a better look at everything. You decided to start moving towards the dorm rooms, the thought of a fire escape coming back to your mind to fuel your every step.

You passed by a set of stairs — finding an escape on any floor but the first floor was only an “if there’s no other choice” option, so you didn’t have to resort to that yet — before you entered into a hallway with multiple doors on both sides; these were the rooms the students had stayed in.

The doorknob of the first door you approached rattled in your hand as you tried to turn it.

Locked.

You had never felt more like a horror movie protagonist than you did then, only you didn’t have to worry about trying to fit keys into a lock with shaky hands as you went from door to door and simply wiggled the doorknob of each one just to find that they were locked like the first, until you eventually found one that wasn’t. The door hadn’t even been closed properly, being slightly ajar.

The lightest push was all that was needed to fully open the door, the creaking it made from the movement making you cringe as you stepped into the room… which was odder than expected.

You saw the expected items — a bed, dresser, and various personal items neatly placed about — that any dorm room would have, but even if the school catered to rich students, the fairy-tale theme was a little juvenile for a teenager’s bedroom. The bed had a canopy that let shimmering curtains flow down from it to shield the bed from sight when they were drawn, and vines covered the walls, intertwined with fairy lights to create a magical atmosphere; the color palette had been limited to vibrant greens and warm browns, but the walls were painted a light blue like the sky.

The entire thing made you feel as if you were in a children’s storybook rather than a school.

It took you only a moment to snap out of your surprise, the charming nature of the bedroom not enough to distract you for long from the windows located on a wall to your right, but keeping you from hurrying over to throw open the curtains and escape to freedom was the sound of a door opening to your right. The thought of another door being in the room aside from the one behind you caught you off guard, but the steam flowing in from the connected room connected the dots.

The school was clearly for the rich and influential, and personal bathrooms fit in with that image.

You could only silently stare as a figure exited the bathroom, her back to you, and even though that was all you could see, it was almost too easy for something within you to admit that she had an unusual beauty about her. The long blonde hair that flowed down her back, the fair skin free of even a single mark or tiny blemish… and the shimmering wings fluttering ever so slightly from where they sprouted out of her back; it was like you were looking at some kind of fairy princess.

The girl was brushing her hair, the dampness making it clear that she had been taking a shower along with the presence of the steam, and she hummed a tune happily to match the beats of her strokes with the hairbrush, ignorant to the intruder was standing just a few paces away from her.

That was until she turned around, a gasp leaving her mouth as soon as her eyes connected with yours, the hairbrush falling from her hand. You heard a small squeak escape your own lips when you stumbled back, your back hitting the dorm room’s door with a thud as your face warmed up.

“Ah, sorry-!”

“O-Oh my goodness! My apologies!”

Your voice overlapped with the girl’s voice as you and her spoke simultaneously, but while your words were filled with embarrassment at being caught in her dorm room and nervousness about her nonhuman appearance, the girl sounded a lot more concerned instead. You kept your gaze trained on her as you tried to navigate around the open door behind you, your legs a little shaky.

“M-My name is Sonia!” The girl tried to smile to ease your obvious unease, her hands carefully brought up to her chest with her palms facing towards her. “Could you please give me yours?”

Her eyes widened after that passed through her lips, and she raised a hand up to her mouth.

“W-Wait, please do not answer that!” Sonia took a step back, her smile faltering briefly until she recomposed herself. “I mean, could you please tell me a name of which I may address you by?”

You finally managed to break your eyes’ focus on Sonia and turned around, your mouth sealed shut as you bolted from the dorm room while ignoring the shouts coming from the fairy princess; the only thing on your mind was to get as far away from her as possible, something about giving her your name eliciting a deep sense of fear in some region of your being, and you just decided to abandon your plan to find an exit in the dorm area, your feet carrying you past the dining hall.

The sound of multiple unfamiliar voices coming from the dining hall — you shook a little at the thought of there being more strange creatures in the building — only fueled your pace as your feet pounded against the tiled floor. You just continued to run even as their voices got fainter.

You only hoped that no one would follow you.

- - - - -

You slowed down once you didn’t hear anyone coming after you, the once-creepy silence of the school now a relief; even though your eyes were starting to become used to the dim lighting that the building had, you still couldn’t see that far down the hallway, so the lack of footsteps heading in your direction was the best indicator that you were safe… or, at least, you were safe for now.

The thought of using your phone’s flashlight again to make navigation easier passed through your mind for a moment, and you reached down to grab it from your pocket, but instead of the glorious cellular metal slab full of electricity and the internet, your fingers only met with fabric.

“O-Oh… oh no, no no no, this can’t be happening…!”

Your voice came out as a low hiss as your heart sank, the fact that your phone was missing the scariest thing that had happened to you yet. You had no idea where you could have lost it, your phone having been in your hands the entire time… that was, up until Akane knocked you over.

“...it’s fine, everything’s fine; it’s just a phone, I can survive without it.”

You placed a hand against the wall to stabilize yourself before you started moving again, trying your best to push back the panic and keep your mind focused on the goal of escaping the place of horrors you were trapped in. You focused on minimizing the sound of your shoes against the floor, on keeping your breathing steady, and on trying to quell the jackhammer inside your chest.

And then you heard voices coming from down the hallway.

The sensation of your entire body tensing up to resemble a stone statue was not comfortable in the slightest, but you forced your body to take a few steps forward anyway. When you were just a few steps away from the corner, you leaned forward to take a peek at the source of the voices.

“I just thought…”

There was one girl and two guys walking down the hallway in your direction, the girl’s face being visible due to the light from the attachment on the video game handheld she held as she spoke.

“...a video game tournament with the class could be fun.”

“That sounds great!” The guy on the girl’s left smiled at her, the dim lighting making it hard to make out anything specific about his appearance, though his silhouette seemed normal. “But the outcome seems a bit obvious if you’re playing. No one here’s as good at them as you are.”

The girl only let out a small hum in response, his gaze cast down at her handheld.

You squinted as you continued to look at the three figures — they appeared to be around your age, but you couldn’t be completely sure yet given everything you had seen so far — and after you had done so for a brief moment, you had to admit that there didn’t seem to be anything that was nonhuman about them; that normally would have been reassuring, but the three were still lurking about an old abandoned school building in the dark of night, which wasn’t normal to do…

…and while you were also doing that, the difference was that you didn’t want to be here.

“Oh?”

The guy on the girl’s right caught the attention of the other two, the both of them following his gaze to see you peeking from around the corner at them, your body freezing at the attention.

It felt as if the world stopped for a moment, the three of them staring at you as you stared back at them. Your chest felt empty, your heart devoid of beats and your lungs devoid of air — maybe they really were as frozen as the rest of your body, your head feeling light to a sickening degree.

“Ah, hello?”

It was the girl who broke the silence first, movement slowly returning to the world as she tilted her head; the light attached to her handheld revealed the pale mauve color of the hair framing her face, and reflected off of the small Galaga pin clipped to a lock of it. Her face remained the main point of focus to you, her dark hoodie blending into the dimly-lit hallway with minimal effort.

The second thing to break the silence was a weak cry that escaped your throat as you shrunk behind the wall, only the top half of your head still visible to the three as you still stared at them.

The girl furrowed her eyebrows, concern on her face. “W-Wait, there’s no need to be scared…!”

“Huh? Are they a new student?” The appearance of the guy on her left became more defined as distress sharpened your senses, your suspicions of him seeming normal confirmed; while it was a bit rude to admit, he had a pretty unremarkable face, and even his outfit of a simple white shirt with a nice tie and dark pants was extremely basic at its very best. “I don’t recognize them…”

The girl shook her head after a moment. “We would’ve been told about a new student…”

You shrunk back a little further as the girl took a slow and careful step forward, leaning forward to get a better look at you. The way she held herself was very calm, not a hint of hostility seen in her body language or on her face, with even her gaze softer than expected when it met yours.

“Hey… my name’s Chiaki. Do you need help?”

Her voice was very soft as she spoke, her tone sounding too genuine for it to be part of some ruse to get you to lower your guard; she was even avoiding getting too close for comfort to you.

“That… that depends.” You peeked your head out a bit more around the corner, returning to how you had originally been before you shrunk back in fear. Your gaze flickered over to the two guys, before you refocused it on Chiaki again. “This might sound a bit strange, but… are you human?”

Chiaki paused as she blinked, and the three shared a glance with each other, the silence shared between them holding some sort of unspoken conversation. They then resumed looking at you.

“Uh, y-yeah…?” The guy with the unremarkable face spoke up, his lips pulled up into a smile that didn’t look entirely convinced of what came out of his own mouth. “We’re… we’re human…”

Despite how hesitant he was with his words, you felt a little calmer than before at the knowledge that there was a fellow human nearby, and you stepped out a bit more from behind the corner; a shaky smile made its way onto your own lips as well, the first step to confidence. “Ah, really…?”

The guy on Chiaki’s right caught your attention as he raised a hand slightly, and you were taken aback by how sickly he looked now that you could see him better; the unusually-fluffy hair on his head was a strange off-white color, and his skin looked too pale to be healthy. He almost looked like someone that should be on strict bed rest rather than hanging around a filthy place like this.

“I think the better question would be… are you human?”

And you suddenly felt not so calm anymore. “W-What?”

“Ugh, Nagito…” The other guy looked at Nagito as he narrowed his eyes into a glare, his lips now turned down into a frown that had clear annoyance written all over it. “That’s not helping.”

“Oh, I just think it’s rather important to know.” Nagito had a slight smile on his face, his posture relaxed despite the obvious tension now present in the air. “Because I’m sure we’ve all figured out what’s going on here, and it’s best to not keep anything hidden in the dark, right, Hajime?”

Chiaki ignored Hajime and Nagito as she kept her gaze trained on you, a soft smile coming to her face as she held a hand to her chest. The light attachment on her handheld was no longer casting light on her face as she held the device by her side, and due to how dim the lighting in the hallway was, you had difficulty deciding if the light blush dusting her cheeks was real or not.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.” She extended a hand for you to take. “Let’s get you out of here.”

You blinked a few times, staring at Chiaki as surprise washed over you, and that was when you felt your nerves finally starting to settle; even if everything else within this old abandoned school building was making you freak out, the girl in front of you seemed to be a real light in the dark as she provided you respite from all the craziness you had witnessed. You hesitated for a couple of seconds more before deciding to go for it as you reached out your hand towards Chiaki’s hand.

The moment you were just an inch away from her, you felt a spark shoot from her to you.

It almost felt like static electricity.

“I-I saw them go this way!”

You flinched at the sound of a familiar voice echoing through the halls, retracting your hand towards your body and wincing slightly at the sight of Chiaki dropping her smile from shock.

“Don’t worry, Miss Sonia! I’ll catch them!”

“Hmph, as if a mere calcium crusader could catch the culprit that the lady saw! Go, my Four Dark Devas of Destruction, and find the intruder that has dared to roam these accursed halls!”

It took less than a second for your body to start moving again, your footsteps pounding against the tiled floor as you darted past the trio of maybe-humans; your mind felt blank aside from fear as you ran, hardly able to make out Chiaki’s words as she called out to you, her voice becoming mixed with various other voices that sprouted up somewhere behind you — you almost felt as if you were an animal, acting without thinking at the first sign of possible danger presented to you.

You just hoped that Chiaki wouldn’t think of you as rude because of this.

- - - - -

You hunched over where you stood, grasping at the wall and gasping for air as you felt your heart pound in your chest; you could still hear voices echoing in the hallways, the sound only helping to keep your heart rate elevated as you tried to figure out where exactly you were.

“Ugh… I-I think I ran past the entrance hall…”

You let out a small groan as your eyes scanned over your surroundings, the corridor completely unfamiliar to you. There was a staircase a few feet from where you stood, but you weren’t dumb enough to ascend it and get trapped on a higher floor where your only option of escape would require jumping out a window; even from just the second floor, you would have to hope that you could stick a safe landing in your panic-filled state. That left a door next to where you stopped.

There was a sign sticking out from the wall above it, but you couldn’t focus enough to read it.

“The others should be in the dining hall by now, young master.”

“Hey, I thought I told you not to call me that…? I cut your strings for a reason, ya know?”

You tensed up at the sound of a pair of voices coming from the staircase, footsteps starting to descend accompanying them, and your thoughts turned to finding a place to hide as you turned on your heel towards the closed door next to you, flinging it open as you attempted to run inside.

But you only took a few steps before crashing into something and getting knocked backwards.

You placed a hand on your head, rubbing it as you blinked a couple of times and looked at the sight in front of you; in the dim lighting, you were able to make out a girl wearing clothing similar to what a nurse would wear — or maybe it actually was a nurse’s uniform, you didn’t really know — who had also been knocked back onto her behind, a small whimper soon escaping her lips.

“A-Ah, I’m so sorry!” You pushed yourself up onto your feet, crouching down to keep yourself on the same level as the girl. “I-I didn’t mean to knock you down, honest! Are you alright? Hurt?”

You were, unsurprisingly, unable to make out much in the dim lighting, but from what you could tell, the girl was relatively unharmed. You did notice bandages wrapped around a couple of her limbs, but given that they were already there and the girl seemingly had no time to patch herself up after running into you, you assumed that they must be from previous injuries she had gotten.

You crawled a bit closer to the girl as she continued to tear up, stopping only when your hand touched something other than the cold tiled floor. The girl’s cold fingers twitched at your touch as you gently took a hold of her hand, the girl herself quieting down too as she looked at you.

You stood up, your grip firm on the girl’s hand. “H-Here! Let me help you up-”

The weight you pulled up in your hand was surprisingly light, and you looked down at your hand to see the girl’s hand still clinging to yours… and you saw only her hand, with part of her forearm attached to it. Its grip was weak, just barely seeming to hold on without falling to the floor below.

“W-What…?”

You slowly let your gaze fall from the hand you held and down towards the girl still sitting on the floor, your eyes immediately going to focus on her arm that was closest to where you had picked up the hand from to see that she was, indeed, missing an entire hand and part of her forearm.

That of which you were currently holding.

It moved slightly in your grasp, the fingers attempting to tighten around yours, before your own grip loosened completely and the hand fell to the floor. Your knees shook before giving out, your eyelids drooping to partly consume your vision with blurry darkness as you lost your balance.

The last thing you heard was a nervous voice shouting before it all went black.

- - - - -

“Wow, humans are even uglier up close!”

“Hiyoko, don’t say that!”

“What? It’s true!”

You let out a groan, shifting your aching body before noticing that you were laying on something soft, the plush surface under your head feeling like a pillow. Your fingers twitched for a moment before grasping at the thin sheets under you, and your mind finally realized that you must be on a bed right now. That didn’t really explain why you could smell food from the dining hall, though.

“Ah, they’re waking up!”

You opened your eyes and blinked a few times, your vision clearing up before you squinted at the fluorescent light that filled the room; this was the best lighting you had seen so far within this abandoned school building. You rolled your head over to see two figures standing at the side of the bed, and your body immediately reacted by making you sit up and push yourself away from them, but you snapped out of it when you almost fell off the other side of the bed, only managing to barely catch yourself. You glanced around at your surroundings, realizing that you were in the nurse’s office, before you refocused your attention on the two unfamiliar figures, still a bit tense.

The first was a girl with red hair — actually, they looked more like petals that wrapped around her head from the top to form a bob — and skin that had an odd green tint to it that made you feel a bit squeamish. The only other thing attention-grabbing about her was the camera hung over her shoulder, the device resting at her hip with her hands free and clasped in front of her.

The second was a smaller girl — who looked much younger than anyone else you had seen so far — dressed in a traditional kimono; however, ruining the otherwise innocent appearance that she had were the horns sprouting out from her head, the bat-like wings flapping from where they stuck out slightly below her shoulders, and the scorpion-like tail swaying side-to-side behind her.

You froze when the small girl grinned at you, her grin filled with unbelievably sharp teeth.

“H-Hey, you don’t need to be scared…” The redhead smiled at you when you shifted your gaze over to her, her smile much less threatening than the small girl’s grin, even though it seemed to be unsure at the moment. “I’m Mahiru, okay? Everything’s fine, and no one’s going to hurt you.”

“Says who?”

Mahiru looked at the small girl next to her, her smile shifting to a stern frown. “Hiyoko-!”

“E-Excuse me…” The sound of a soft voice cut off Mahiru before she could say anything else, and you looked over at the source, seeing the girl you had bumped into earlier standing a little ways away from the bed you were sitting on. You raised your eyebrows in surprise to see that you had guessed correctly that she was donning a nurse’s uniform, before you noticed that her posture appeared very timid; she was slouching, shrinking in on herself as if to make herself seem as small as possible. “I-If you don’t mind, I need to check to make sure you’re okay…”

Not a single sound escaped you as you stared at her, the girl staring right back at you.

The presence of a proper light source above you allowed you to now notice the varied colors of her skin, all being varying shades of pale green, with stitches connecting the patches that made up her body. You even noticed how her limbs were attached to her body with thin strings as well, meaning that, due to your sudden collision with her, her arm had completely detached from her-

The girl widened her eyes in panic. “Wha-?! I-I’m sorry! Did I do something wrong…?!”

You took a deep breath, your vision blurring slightly as tears pricked at your eyes, and your hands tightly gripping the sheets of the bed you were sitting on, your fingers digging into them.

“No, no, Mikan! You didn’t do anything wrong!” Mahiru looked at the nurse, her lips pulling up into a rather successful reassuring smile. “They’re just scared! It’s okay, this is totally normal!”

The sight of the zombified nurse almost breaking down into tears did help to calm your nerves the slightest bit, undeniable humanity within her action that broke through the dread pooling in the pit in your stomach. You attempted to relax your grip on the sheets beneath you as Mikan wiped at her face with her hands, and you did the same to your own face after a few moments.

“I’m s-sorry! I didn’t mean to-”

“N-No, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have s-scared you…!”

“Oh, god, there’s two of them now.” The small demon girl — Hiyoko, as Mahiru said — rolled her eyes, her lips pursed in annoyance. “I don’t know if I can handle having two crybabies around…”

“See? Everything is fine!” Mahiru ignored Hiyoko as she kept her focus on you and Mikan, her reassuring smile still present on her face. “There’s nothing to be scared of, or to worry about.”

You sniffed, taking a few breaths to calm down before you focused your gaze on Mikan. “S-So… um… you said that you needed to check to… make sure that I’m okay, or… or something…?”

“Y-Yeah!” Mikan nodded, her voice determined despite the stuttering. “I-If you’ll let me…”

You flinched when Mikan drew closer to you, though you still tried to stay as still as possible as you let the nurse check you over for injuries; her touch was ice cold — if her appearance wasn’t enough to tell you that she wasn’t alive, her lack of body warmth was — and you shuddered as you tried to repress the urge to gag at the thought that an undead body was touching your own.

You tried to focus on something else, anything else, to distract your mind and stomach during the inspection, only to find your eyes drawn towards the stitches that littered Mikan’s body. The main thing to draw your attention to them was how they looked unusually loose, the strings that kept her limbs attached to her body specifically appearing to lack the tension needed to keep them from detaching like they did earlier, and it was a little odd that she hadn’t tightened them.

“E-Everything looks fine…” Mikan removed her hands from your body, clasping them together under her chin. “I-I don’t think that you’ll have any lasting injuries from w-what happened…”

“Great!” Mahiru looked at you with a gentle smile. “That means you can come with us!”

You blinked in surprise. “...huh?”

“Yeah… Mr. Fool’s Gold says that we’ve gotta have a meeting!” Hiyoko too had a smile on her face, though hers was a lot more unnerving than Mahiru’s as she smiled wide, letting you get another look at all of the sharp teeth she had in her mouth. “And you’re the guest of honor!”

- - - - -

You looked down at the plate of food that was now in your hands as you left the nurse’s office with Mahiru and Hiyoko, the food being the culprit for why the nurse’s office had smelled like the dining hall — apparently a “Teruteru” had dropped it off for you while you were unconscious after hearing that you fainted, but while it was a kind thing to do, you weren’t very hungry right now.

“Alright, we’ll escort you to the dining hall.” Mahiru was a couple of steps in front of you, looking back over her shoulder at you with the calm and friendly smile that you had come to appreciate greatly from her still present on her face. “It’s where our class always holds our meetings.”

The reason why you appreciated the plant-esque girl’s smile so much was that it was nothing like Hiyoko’s smile, which was always filled with either disgust or malicious intent; you had only known her for about ten minutes or so, so you were baffled as to why she was so mean to you.

The small demon girl raised her hands into the air happily. “Yep, it’s time for you to die!”

“What?!”

“No, that’s not what’s going to happen!” Mahiru put her hands on her hips, leaning slightly towards Hiyoko with her eyes narrowed into a soft glare. “Don’t joke about things like that, Hiyoko. It’s not funny, and we really don’t need them passing out again like they did earlier.”

Hiyoko looked to the side, her lips forming a small pout. “Aw, but that’s no fun…”

Mahiru glared at Hiyoko for a few moments more before she let her lips turn up into a smile again and straightened her posture. “Now, with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the-”

You blinked as Mahiru cut herself off, before you suddenly became very aware of a presence behind you, a shadow being cast over your shoulders even with the dim lighting in the hallway; the lack of fear on Mahiru’s and Hiyoko’s faces was reassuring, only slight surprise within their expressions, and you hesitated for just a moment before turning around to see a familiar face.

There was a hungry grin on Akane’s face as she looked down at you — or, more precisely, the plate you were carrying. You felt your body tense up at the sight, the way the canine-esque girl was towering over you making her expression seem more menacing than it actually was, but when you caught sight of her tail wagging excitedly behind her, you almost felt the urge to smile.

You held the plate out to Akane, your hands shaking just a little, and watched her grin grow as her tail wagged even faster. You felt the plate be hastily torn from your grasp before it clattered on the floor, the food completely gone; not a single morsel or crumb was to be found anywhere.

“Aw, thanks! I was starving!”

“We ate half-an-hour ago-” Hiyoko pointed accusingly towards Akane. “-you overgrown fleabag!”

“Oh, really? Huh, it felt longer than that…” Akane flashed a grin at you and the two girls, the sight of her canines a lot less scary to you now. “Well, training makes me hungry, you know?”

“AKANE! Your speed is admirable, but you shouldn’t run away from your training!”

The ground shook as a figure arrived around the corner in the hallway, both tall in height and wide in length; the silhouette of the new arrival was rigid and jagged, the dull gray of his stone body becoming more obvious to you as he drew nearer to you and the three girls around you.

“Sorry, Coach Nekomaru!” Akane continued to grin as she turned to face the stone man, her demeanor casual without a single care in the world, though her tail was still wagging slightly as if she was an excited puppy. “My nose caught wind of good food and I couldn’t control myself.”

“A healthy appetite is a good sign…” Nekomaru looked down at Akane with a frown etched onto his stone face, his facial features all being very sharp and serious. “...but that’s NO EXCUSE!”

“Hey, that’s enough yelling…!” Mahiru raised her voice as she put her hands on her hips, her lips pulled down into an annoyed frown. “You might scare our… er… guest? …yeah, guest! You shouldn’t yell inside anyway. Now, since they’re awake, we all need to head to the dining hall.”

“Gah-hahahaha! Okay!” Nekomaru shifted his attention back over to Akane, the jagged stone features of his face turning up into an excited grin; it was both unnerving yet fascinating to see stone more so fluidly, appearing both uncanny yet natural at the same time. “Akane, we’ll use this as a part of your training! Go around the school and inform the others to head to the dining hall pronto. I expect you to finish and be in the dining hall yourself within the next ten minutes!”

Hiyoko piped up, an innocent-looking smile on her face that didn’t fit the patronizing tone that came out of her mouth. “Yeah, Akane! And if you manage to do that, we’ll give you a treat!”

“Treat?”

The werewolf let out an ecstatic howl before taking off, disappearing in the blink of an eye and leaving nothing but dust in her wake, which you accidentally breathed in and had to cough out.

Mahiru let out a groan. “Come on, let’s just go already.”

- - - - -

You plopped yourself down into one of the chairs in the dining hall, and fiddled with your hands in your lap as you glanced towards the large windows you had seen earlier; unlike the beautiful sunset you witnessed before, there was just complete darkness on the other side now, the light of the lights inside only helping to make the night outside look even darker than it actually was.

The dining hall wasn’t completely empty when you arrived here.

The chef you saw earlier — who you learned was the “Teruteru” that had dropped the plate of food off for you in the nurse’s office, and had been in possession of your phone that you did, in fact, drop after Akane knocked you over earlier — was still there, cleaning up after having made the whole buffet by himself. Hiyoko had actually taken the effort to point out to you that Teruteru was the class pervert the moment you crossed the threshold into the dining hall, and it was nice to know that your gut feeling about him before was correct, and not just a product of your terror.

But at least he seemed decent enough to return your phone without trouble.

That said, the fear bubbling up inside your stomach still had quite a lot of fuel left.

Due to the lights in the dining hall being brighter than the ones in the hallway, you had to bear witness to what everyone truly looked like as they filtered into the room over a short period of time. You already knew what Mahiru and Hiyoko looked like in good lighting, the nurse’s office also one of the few rooms in the building that had some, but Nekomaru took your breath away when the light revealed the cracks and scratches on his stone body, which he just laughed off.

You had to admit that, even with how unsettling their monstrous appearances were, there was also something so intriguing about them that appealed to the natural human instinct of curiosity within you… but then there were the cases of those who appeared so human on the outside.

Chiaki looked as normal as any girl you might run into in a gaming store, and she had taken a seat right next to you after noticing your obvious discomfort with your current situation. The old handheld was still in her hands, the light attachment removed due to the better lighting, and she tried to pull your focus towards her video game to help distract you and calm you down; it might had worked better if it weren’t for the tingly “static electricity” sensation you got around her that you had felt earlier, the sensation a clear sign that she wasn’t as human as she appeared to be.

Nagito just looked even more ill than before, the bright lighting only making his pale skin stand out a lot more, and his behavior as he conversed with the others — he was seemingly ignoring you, which you couldn’t complain about — made it clear that he was a little off in the head. On the other hand, Hajime both looked and acted like a normal guy, though there was a noticeable scar on his head that was only partly hidden by his hair, the sight of it making you shiver a little.

It didn’t take long for Mikan to enter the dining hall after those three, stumbling a bit like how the zombies in classic horror movies often did when walking around. “S-Sorry for taking so long…!”

Mahiru smiled at Mikan reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Mikan! The meeting hasn’t started yet.”

“O-Oh?” Mikan looked around with a nervous frown on her lips, seeming to take a moment to check who had arrived in the dining hall before she did. “S-So… I didn’t keep you waiting…?”

“No, you didn’t.” Hajime also piped up to reassure the zombified nurse from where he sat at a circular table. “Most of the others aren’t here yet, so… you could say that you’re actually early.”

“A-Ah, okay…”

The nurse looked both relieved and slightly disappointed at that revelation, but she didn’t say anything more as she took a seat at the table Hajime and Nagito were sitting at — needing at least three reassurances that she was actually allowed to sit with them instead of on the floor.

The next to enter was a girl who you had never seen before, and the moment she opened her mouth, you were honestly surprised that you hadn’t at least heard her during your time here; the windows in the dining hall were already cracked, but you swore they grew a bit when she spoke.

“Whoa-ho! It’s true! It’s true! A human’s inside the school!”

Chiaki looked up at the girl calmly. “Ah, Ibuki… you might want to lower your voice a bit.”

You had to take a few moments to focus after your eyes stopped ringing — thankfully, your ears didn’t start bleeding from just how painfully loud Ibuki was being — before you managed to look at and take in the sight of her. Her appearance was a mess, her hair particularly wild with some of it having been dyed pink and blue, though she somehow managed to make it all work for her.

“Oh, sorry!” Ibuki sent you an apologetic smile, rubbing the back of her head as she made her way towards the table. “Ibuki sometimes forgets that humans can’t handle her natural voice.”

You raised an eyebrow as you stared at Ibuki. “Your natural voice is… screaming?”

“Haha, yeah!” Ibuki plopped herself down in the seat opposite to you. “It’s kinda hard to control, but don’t worry! I just gotta use my indoor voice, and then everything’s gonna be all rock ‘n roll.”

She appeared to focus for a moment, closing her eyes and putting her hands up to her head as she repeated the words “indoor voice” to herself over and over again. Even though you were still a little confused, you appreciated the effort she was making to not absolutely destroy your ears.

Your attention was pulled from Ibuki when you saw Sonia enter the dining hall with a nervous anticipation about her, her wings fluttering behind her and sparkling beautifully in the bright light of the dining hall. The worry laced in her expression only lessened the moment she saw you.

“Oh, thank goodness! You are alright!”

There were two guys that followed Sonia into the dining hall, who were also people that you had never seen before, but then you remembered hearing her voice in the halls accompanied by two others earlier; these had to be who she was talking to. The one to draw in most of your attention was a skeleton that had glowing pink hair that was only partially hidden under a beanie, and the other was a guy who had almost every inch of his skin that was visible wrapped up in bandages, though the attention that you gave him was soon lost to the hamsters that sat on his shoulders.

The hamsters were also wrapped up in bandages, which admittedly made them cuter.

“So… this is the foolish mortal that has dared to enter onto this accursed land?” The guy that was wrapped up in bandages crossed his arms as he stared at you with an overly-intense gaze, only breaking it from you when the hamsters sitting on his shoulders squeaked as if responding to him. “It is! My Dark Devas say that their scent is the same as the one lingering in the halls!”

The skeleton let out an annoyed sigh, and you silently wondered how he did that. “Geez, dude, Miss Sonia could’ve just told us if they’re the one or not. She did see them in her room, after all.”

“Oh! Uh…” You looked at Sonia again, your cheeks beginning to warm up from embarrassment that you had almost forgotten you experienced earlier. “...s-sorry about earlier. For both entering your room and then just running off like that… that was probably super rude of me, wasn’t it?”

“It is quite alright.” Sonia smiled brightly at you, her wings fluttering again and sparkling more as they caught the light in just the right way. “As long as you are uninjured, that is all that matters.”

Sonia then sat down in the other seat next to you, and it only took a couple of seconds before the two guys started arguing over who would get the seat on the other side of her; it was hard enough to keep up with the argument as they spoke over each other, but the fact that the guy with the bandages was spicing up his language only added another headache to the situation.

You hesitated for a moment before gesturing to them. “Is this normal, or…?”

“Yes, but please just ignore them.” Sonia continued to smile as if it was nothing. “Kazuichi and Gundham tend to often get into… tussles with each other, so please do not pay it much mind.”

“Kazuichi’s the skeleton and Gundham’s the mummy!” Ibuki piped up, her voice loud but not at all like the painful screeching you heard from her earlier. “They fight over Sonia all the time! It’s a classic love triangle, though… heh, Kazuchi refuses to realize that he’s on the losing side!”

“I’m surprised that both of them aren’t on the losing side.” Hiyoko had a smug smile on her face, her hand held up to her mouth and barely obscuring it from view. “It’s just corpse number one or corpse number two. Tell me, which one would you prefer? A bag of bones or a rotting fleshbag?”

“H-Hey!”

Kazuichi tore his attention from Gundham to look towards Hiyoko with shock on his face, and you were surprised to see how expressive he could be for a skeleton with no facial muscles.

“I’m not a “bag of bones”! I’d say my bone structure is actually quite good!”

Gundham crossed his arms, his hamsters following suit soon after. “Hmph… I’ll have you know, my corporeal form has been purified and treated with the salts of this mortal plane, and wrapped in these mystical strips of flax, to prevent the curse of organic decomposition from taking place.”

“I made it!”

That shout bounced off of the walls of the dining hall as Akane dashed into it, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she panted crazily and her tail wagging violently behind her.

“I did it in under ten minutes, just like you said to, Coach!”

Nekomaru let out a loud laugh. “I expected nothing less! Your speed is always improving!”

“So…” Akane glanced around the dining hall, an expectant glimmer in her eyes to match the excited smile on her lips. “...where’s my treat? All that running around made me super hungry!”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget!” Nekomaru turned in the direction of the kitchen, where you could see Teruteru drying the last of the dishes from the feast he made earlier. “Teruteru, how about whipping up something to reward Akane? I’m never one to discourage a healthy appetite!”

“W-What?” Teruteru widened his eyes as he stared at Nekomaru, before looking between the dishes he had just cleaned and the stone man. “B-But I just finished cleaning up from dinner…”

The chef just stared at Nekomaru, the stone man staring back at him, before he let out a small sigh and began gathering the cooking equipment and ingredients needed to whip up a quick treat for Akane. He soon disappeared into the depths of the kitchen, and your focus was pulled to the entrance of the dining hall as two more — again, unfamiliar — people entered the room.

The girl appeared to be made out of some kind of wood, her movements a bit stiff with a faint creaking sound emitting from her joints as she crossed her arms; she was clearly a puppet of some kind, but lacked the expected strings. “So… this is the human who entered our school…?”

“Well, that’s idiotic of ‘em.” The guy seemed human at a first glance until you noticed the few reptilian features he had, such as his tail and the horns atop his head, which still seemed like they needed more time to grow. He also appeared to have a few scales peppered across his cheeks, which made you think of freckles. “This place is obviously boarded up for a reason…”

“Oh, oh! Almost everyone’s here!”

Ibuki smiled wide as she looked at you, pointing a finger at the girl and then the guy.

“The babe’s Peko and the little guy’s Fuyuhiko!”

Fuyuhiko almost immediately glared at Ibuki, going from zero-to-a-hundred quicker than most would; his temper seemed to go hand-in-hand with his height. “The fuck you just called me?”

“Greetings.” Peko was much calmer in comparison to Fuyuhiko, seeming to pay little to no attention to how Ibuki introduced her, but the way her gaze pierced into you was much more intimidating than you would have expected, and that was when you noticed the sword on her back. “I hope you aren’t here to cause trouble. I would prefer to not have to take you out.”

“Then you can take me out, Peko-Peko!” Ibuki sent a peace sign to Peko, then winked. “Wink!”

You looked around the dining hall as everyone began to mingle with each other, you no longer being the main center of attention, and you realized that if it wasn’t for their — most of their — appearances, they would look like a normal group of teenagers hanging out. It actually caused you to seem even more out of place, being both human and an obvious outsider to their group’s dynamic; you actually started to feel a bit jealous of how close they all seemed with each other.

“Ah, good. Everyone’s arrived in a timely manner, I see.”

“Whoa! You’re the last to arrive?” Hiyoko looked at the last arrival to the dining hall with mock shock displayed on her face, widening her eyes slightly. “That’s not like you, Mr. Fool’s Gold!”

“Hmph, I was just finishing up some last-minute business before coming down here.” The last person was rather large, an almost intense aura of seriousness and regality surrounding him as he stepped further into the room. “This was just an outlier in my otherwise-punctual reputation.”

You couldn’t help but admit to yourself that he looked somewhat familiar, like someone you had seen before somewhere but didn’t personally know. However, there was something seriously off about him, something uncanny that made you tense up as your gaze was solely trained on him.

His footsteps were heavy as he approached the table you were sitting at, and you shrunk a bit in your seat from his piercing gaze, his eyes zoning in on you easily since you stuck out so much.

“Ah… so you’re the human who’s gotten inside our school?”

You swallowed as you stared at him for a moment, before you hesitantly nodded.

“And why exactly are you here? The boarded-up windows and doors clearly suggest that you are not to come inside, and should’ve been warning enough to prevent such irresponsibility.”

“I, uh…” You swallowed again, your mouth feeling dry as your eyes flickered around at all the people surrounding you. You had people sitting on both sides of you, and some even standing behind you, so you couldn’t exactly run away from this. “...I came here with some new friends- well, not really “friends”, but some people I met at my new school. They… they tricked me into coming here and locked the door behind me, so I was just trying to look for a way out…?”

“Hmph.” He crossed his arms, averting his gaze. “...so you’re here because of a juvenile prank.”

“...yep.”

Hiyoko stifled a laugh with her hand. “Oooh, so they’ve sent you to your death?”

“Please stop saying stuff like that!” You clasped your hands in front of your chest, keeping your gaze cast down at your lap. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong! I-I didn’t mean to come here!”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Chiaki placed a hand on your shoulder, and you winced as you felt a small bit of static electricity come from her touch. “You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no bad guy here.”

“Well, prank or not, this is still a serious matter.” Nekomaru put his hand to his chin, seeming to think for a moment. “This human’s gotten inside the school and seen all of us. That’s not good.”

“To be perceived by a mortal’s eyes…” Gundham crossed his arms, his hamsters resting on his shoulders and snuggling into his scarf. “Truly a troubling situation, a fortune most unfortunate.”

“Oh, I don’t mind being perceived-” Teruteru finally joined the group, placing a plate in front of Akane before wiping his hands with a dishtowel. “-especially when it’s by such a darling human.”

You scooted slightly closer to Chiaki, leaning towards her for comfort.

“I don’t get what the big deal is.” Akane stuffed her mouth full of her “treat”, which turned out to be some kind of meat that smelled really good. “I mean, we let Hajime and Nagito hang around.”

Hajime let a faint smile onto his face, his hand raising to touch the scar on his head with his fingers, letting them trail along it. “Yeah, but… I think our cases are a bit different than theirs.”

“The only thing we share with them is biology.” Nagito also smiled a bit, his elbows resting on the table in front of him as he leaned forward. “But besides that… there’s nothing in common.”

“Well, if you want them silenced…” Fuyuhiko smirked. “I’ve got methods.”

The dining hall went silent aside from a few gasps escaping from some of the members of the group, all eyes on the reptilian boy; the fairy princess sitting beside you notably put her hands over her mouth, her eyes widened, while Chiaki furrowed her eyebrows. There were a few jaws dropped, Ibuki’s and Kazuichi’s more prominent than everyone else’s, and you couldn’t help but be thankful that most of the people here seemed to not want your human blood on their hands.

Peko blinked as she looked at Fuyuhiko, her eyes widened slightly. “Young master…?”

“Huh? What?” Fuyuhiko dropped his smirk as he looked around at everyone, genuine confusion on his face before brief realization and then a glare. “Goddamnit, I don’t mean killing them! I just mean blackmail and threats! There’s more than one way to keep someone silent, you guys!”

The presumed ring leader of the group, Mr. Fool’s Gold — no one had called him anything else — let out a hum. “While that is a solution, this situation doesn’t really call for that kind of action.”

You felt another zap of static electricity shock your shoulder as Chiaki gave it a gentle squeeze, and you looked at her to see her smiling at you; even though her presence meant having to get zapped every so often, she was definitely one of the more approachable people you had met.

She then turned her attention to her friends, her smile unwavering.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. They’re not a threat, and we can definitely trust them… I think.”

“I second that!” Sonia put a hand up into the air, a smile gracing her lips as well. “I do not believe they mean us any harm. Punishment for being the victim of a prank is not needed.”

“Well… if Miss Sonia says so…” Kazuichi looked a little uneasy, scratching his neck before he gave a thumbs-up. “Then they’re also good with me! Miss Sonia’s never wrong, after all!”

The hamsters on Gundham’s shoulders squeaked, and he chuckled. “Both the Dark Fae Queen and my Dark Devas say that the mortal is trustworthy… their judgement is not to be questioned.”

“Ibuki trusts them too!” Ibuki was shouting again, and had to pause briefly as she lowered her voice. “Though Ibuki hasn’t known them long, they don’t seem to be anything to worry about!”

“Well, duh!” Hiyoko giggled. “Even Mikan could easily take them out. They’re totally pathetic!”

Mikan nervously smiled, fidgeting with her hands as she kept her gaze averted from everyone else. “N-No, I’m sure they could maybe fight back… a-a little. If they tried really hard to do so.”

“I don’t think they would fight back.” Mahiru adjusted her camera in her hands, a smile also on her face. “They don’t seem like they want to hurt anyone at all, that picture’s pretty clear to me.”

“Well, then.”

The attention in the dining hall was brought back over to Mr. Fool’s Gold, and you shrunk a little under his gaze, though the feeling of another shocking squeeze to your shoulder comforted you.

“You. Do you have any intention of telling anyone what you saw here?”

You shook your head. “No…”

“You’ll make no mention of anything that happened? About the school or the people here?”

You shook your head again. “No.”

Mr. Fool’s Gold seemed to think to himself for a moment, his arms still crossed and his posture still perfectly straight, and after a few seconds of pure silence in the dining hall, he let out a sigh.

“Then I suppose you may go… but if you do happen to reveal the truths of this place to anyone on the outside, we will find out. That would be troublesome, though, so please do not do that.”

“Okay…”

He glanced around at the others, everyone still focusing their attention on him. “Now, will someone please escort them out? And check the doors while you’re at it as well, please.”

Chiaki stood up, her hand still on your shoulder, and you stood up soon after her, the others in the dining hall beginning to chat with one another again — though some still had words for you.

“Oh! Oh! Since you know everything now, you can totally come back if you want!” Ibuki jumped up from her seat, climbing atop the table to look down at you from her new vantage point as she formed glasses with her fingers. “Ibuki’s spotted a new friend, and she can’t just let that go!”

“It would be lovely, if you could!” Sonia continued to sit in her seat, her hands in her lap before she raised them up to clap them together once, her smile bright. “We don’t get to show our true selves to others often, so it’d be nice to have another person we can just be ourselves around.”

Gundham let out a low laugh as his hamsters squeaked. “The Dark Devas of Destruction give you their blessing to return, if your mortal heart would even be able to withstand their power.”

“Just… stay safe and all that.” Hajime had a slight smile on his face. “You should probably not sneak into any “abandoned” buildings again. You’re kind of lucky that we’re all you ran into.”

Fuyuhiko put his hands in his pockets, his lips turned down into a stern frown as he approached you. “Remember: keep quiet. You don’t wanna know what might happen if you don’t, ya hear?”

You just gave a slight nod before Chiaki escorted you out of the dining hall, the sound of various goodbyes and farewells ringing out from everyone; the shift from a bright crowded room to a dim empty hallway was jarring, but the dusty old building seemed a lot less intimidating than before.

You were finally going to get to leave.

- - - - -

The front entrance door was covered in wooden boards, the glass cracked with some pieces of it missing underneath; it was just like you remembered it being from all those many hours ago.

Chiaki pushed open the door, letting a cool breeze of the night air blow into the entrance hall and into your face — the air was so fresh and crisp compared to what you had been breathing for the last couple of hours that you could almost start crying, but you were also too tired to do so. The area outside the door was empty of life, the sound of city life echoing in the distance.

Those “friends” from before were gone, almost as if they had never been there.

They probably left hours ago after getting bored, while you had been fearing for your life.

“You okay?”

You snapped out of your thoughts as you looked over at Chiaki, a curious look on her face as she tilted her head. You blinked a few times as your brain thought about what she asked you.

“...yeah, I’m fine.”

Chiaki let a smile onto her face, letting out a small hum as she placed a hand on her chest. “...you know, you really can visit whenever you’d like. I don’t think anyone here would mind.”

“That’s… a nice offer.” You smiled back, shifting a bit in place where you stood. “Though… do you guys always meet up in the middle of the night, or was this a special thing, or, like, what…?”

“Yep.” Chiaki nodded her head. “It’s the safest and most convenient time for us to gather at the school. We all have lives during the day, so nighttime is pretty much the only option that works.”

“...got it.”

You took a few steps out into the cool night air, taking in a few deep breaths of air that made it feel as if your lungs were singing at how fresh it was, and you shivered slightly before hugging yourself with your arms. You then looked over your shoulder at Chiaki, who still smiled at you.

“I… don’t know if I’d be able to come here often, but… I could visit every once in a while…?”

Chiaki seemed to perk up as her soft smile brightened a little under the moonlight as she closed her eyes and removed her hand from her chest. “That’s great! We’ll all be looking forward to it!”

You managed to wave at Chiaki, the gamer girl returning it, before she closed the entrance door to the school, a loud click sounding as she made sure to lock it properly. You let your eyes linger on the school for a moment, taking in how it really did look abandoned; there was no hint or sign that there was anyone currently occupying the building, the school grounds just quiet and dark.

You then turned away from the school and let out a small sigh, beginning to walk away from the old school building. Your footsteps crunched under your feet from dead leaves and branches.

“...I really hope I’m not going crazy.”

[fanfictwins]

DRV3 - Halloween Special 2022

Summary: "As a young enthusiastic ghost hunter, you'd go to the ends of the earth in order to find proof of paranormal life. Luckily, you just have to go to a certain Ultimate Academy instead."

Word Count: ~15k

“Okay… just up and over, and-”

You launched yourself off of the cold metal of the fence, landing on your feet with a thump before immediately going to steady yourself, the heavy bag resting on your back threatening to tip you over if you didn’t.

“...I’m in.”

The area beyond the fence was dark — you were here in the dead of night, so that was to be expected — but it seemed like the moon above was giving you just enough light to let you see where you were going without the use of a flashlight; since waving one around out here would be a surefire way to bring attention to yourself and get yourself caught, you appreciated anything that helped you to stay under the radar of anyone who might be watching this place.

You weren’t sure what exactly the punishment for trespassing was, but since there were various “Do Not Enter” signs posted around the property and a tall fence with a locked gate, you knew that there was something awaiting those caught sneaking onto the grounds.

Shrugging your shoulders, you slid your bag off of your back and brought it around to set it on the ground in front of you before unzipping it. You shuffled through your items, eventually grabbing your camera — the battery fully-charged for the night ahead, with extra batteries packed just in case — and turning it on.

“Hey, hey, everybody!” You smiled, pointing the camera at your face. “I’m officially within the borders of the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, and I’m ready to get hunting!”

You set the camera down next to you as you dug around in your bag again, this time grabbing one of the flashlights you had brought with you; while the outside of the academy was illuminated by moonlight, there was no guarantee the inside would be the same. You also strapped a pair of night-vision goggles to your head, an extra precaution should something happen to your flashlights, while the rest of your tools remained in your backpack for later.

After slinging your backpack over your shoulders again, you grabbed your camera from where it sat on the ground and pointed it forward. “Alright, let’s get going!”

You surveyed the area around you, comparing it to the map you had looked at beforehand and committed to memory after hours of staring at it in preparation for your trip; based on what you were seeing, you were currently standing in the area opposite to the actual school building. You would have been surprised at how big the property was if it weren’t for the fact that it apparently served as the grounds of a private academy for the crème de la crème of high school students.

The Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles was supposedly some fancy school that exceptionally talented teenagers attended to hone and perfect their talents, securing them a successful future as adults after graduation, but, according to your research, the place only operated for a few years before it shut down. The remains of that promising place were left to the mercy of time, eventually breaking down into the decrepit disappointment before you now.

But you didn’t really care about that.

You were here to hunt for ghosts, not mourn a privileged educational facility that failed to survive; the depressing aura of broken hopes and dreams was actually what pulled you here — you would have preferred something along the lines of murder or other tragedies that ended in death, but your research unfortunately revealed a lack of anything like that — since that kind of aura would definitely attract something that would reside within the crumbling halls.

And you were going to find it.

- - - - -

“Okay, folks, the first place to check out is this building called the… “Shrine of Judgement”? I don’t know why it’s called that, but that’s what the map said the name was.”

Your pace was steady as you moved towards your first destination — the round building closest to where you had entered the property — as your gaze flickered between the uneven terrain you were walking on and the screen of your camera; the absolute last thing you wanted was for your footage to come out all shaky and unfocused when you reviewed it later, making all your ghostly video evidence unusable and making you waste an entire night of your life for nothing.

“Considering how run-down this place is, I was expecting to see, like… animals running about and stuff, but I haven’t really seen any signs of life yet… except for all these plants.” You panned the camera around as you spoke, letting it get a good look at the overgrown plants surrounding the cracked concrete pathway you had stepped onto. “Well, I think I did hear some bugs buzzing around, maybe, but that’s about it. That just means that any weird noises I hear are gonna have to come from one source: ghosts. Not, like, from birds or-”

The sound of a light thud behind you made you pause, your mouth snapping shut as your mind processed the interruption to your commentary; it was such a soft sound, something that would have gone unnoticed within the ambient noise of a normal situation, but in the presence of dead silence that only had your voice and the occasional buzzing of bugs to break it, that sound might as well be compared to the deafening crash of a rock smashing into the concrete behind you.

You swiftly turned on your heel, your camera poised and ready to capture the specter that had made that sound on video, but, to your disappointment, all you saw was a large wall.

The hand holding your camera fell slightly as a frown appeared on your face, before you came to the realization that there wasn’t a wall there previously; the thought of an object appearing out of thin air made a smile return to your face, and prompted you to take a closer look at it.

You took a step towards the wall, your eyes narrowing as you readied your gaze to inspect the potential sign of a nearby ghostly presence, and you immediately noticed that it looked… fluffy.

This wasn’t a wall; it was some sort of fluffy creature.

The low level of light made it hard to make out what exactly the creature looked like, but it was just enough for you to get a decent grasp on a few things about its appearance — namely, it had four arms, a massive wingspan, was incredibly tall, and… had striking red eyes that were staring right back at your own curious gaze, the pair of glasses on its face only amplifying its stare.

You continued to stare at the creature, you and it seemingly locked into an impromptu staring contest with each other, before you took your inactive flashlight and poked the creature with it.

It was tangible.

Darn.

Not a ghost.

The creature blinked and tilted his head, clearly confused. “You not scared of Gonta?”

“No.” You mirrored his actions, tilting your own head with a steady smile on your face. “Why would I be?”

“A-Ah… Gonta scary-looking. Most people run and scream when they see Gonta.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

You finally broke eye-contact with the creature to check your camera; all this standing around and talking about nothing important was wasting the battery, but you didn’t want to just turn it off in case something suddenly came up that you knew you absolutely needed to get on video. You had to return to your search immediately, making the most of this hopefully-haunted night.

“Anyways, nice to meet you. Goodbye.”

You turned around and started walking towards the “Shrine” again, readjusting your camera to get a good shot of the building as you approached its entrance.

“W-Wait…!”

Gonta — as he seemed to be called — followed after you; his footsteps were heavy, a complete opposite to the soft thud you had heard when he first appeared behind you.

You let out a hum, still continuing forward despite the creature following you. “What?”

“Gonta has never seen you before, so Gonta was wondering if you are new student-” His gaze was cast down to the side, appearing almost bashful in a way. “-and wanted to help you, like gentleman. Gentlemen always happy to help!”

“Me, a student? Of this school?” You said, letting your words hang in the air for a moment before you shrugged, “No, I’m just visiting… but you can still help me out, if you want.”

Gonta appeared to perk up at your answer. “Really? Then Gonta do his best to help!”

You just let out another hum in response, most of your attention captured by the building you were currently entering; after carefully going up the crumbling stairs and through the red doors that were basically falling off of their rusted hinges, you finally found yourself in the “Shrine of Judgement”. The round glass ceiling let moonlight into the interior of the building, though a lot of the inside of the “Shrine” was still shrouded in dark shadows, mostly beyond the center.

“Okay, this place is looking pretty spooky-” You panned the camera around, making sure to get a nice shot of the area, especially the rather fancy-looking waterfall-and-fountain feature — you weren’t sure why, but the fountain felt oddly empty, like there was supposed to be a statue there, though you just shrugged it off. “-but I don’t see anything too notable yet.”

“Huh? Who is new friend talking to?”

“Just my subscribers.”

“Sub… scribers?”

You pouted and furrowed your eyebrows as you brought your camera down from your face, your eyes flickering around the interior of the “Shrine”; sure, the spooky atmosphere was nice and all, but lack of good lighting was going to make it hard to capture decent footage of any ghostly activity that might take place here. The problem was solved when you clicked the power button on your flashlight, the beam of light helping to reveal what was hidden in the shadows.

The light revealed dozens of pink and white flowers growing within the “Shrine”, which hardly kept your attention for more than a second as you tried looking for anything of interest.

“That’s much better. You see anything, Gonta? …Gonta?”

You simply stared behind you at the space where the large gentleman had previously been, his sudden disappearance exciting you as you wondered if he actually was a ghost all along… only for you to return your attention to what was in front of you to see him now standing there. Even if your disappointment towards this was immeasurable, it wasn’t crushing enough to stop you from noticing that Gonta was staring intently at the flashlight in your hand, his gaze fixed on the tool.

You just stood there for a moment before moving the flashlight to the right, watching how his eyes immediately followed it; the exact same thing happened when you moved it to the left, and again when you zig-zagged the tool around in the air in random patterns.

“...huh.”

- - - - -

The “Shrine”, despite the promising name, showed no signs of any ghostly activity happening there — you had done everything you could think of, from begging to bartering, to try and incite any spirits that may have been residing there to do anything, but you got no response no matter what you tried — so you were forced to continue your search elsewhere on the school grounds.

You were also on your own again, having decided to split up from Gonta after his help held no results at the first destination; to thank him for his time, you ended up giving him the flashlight that you were previously using since he seemed really interested in it for whatever reason.

That wasn’t even close to the reason you packed extra flashlights, but you didn’t mind losing one if it was for something like that.

After that whole situation, you had tried to check out the buildings near the “Shrine”, but the weirdly-high-tech places were all inaccessible — no amount of force you used against the doors managed to open them, even when you slammed your entire body into them — and the dojo, as impressive as it looked, was found to be completely empty of life, both ghostly and otherwise.

That entire section of the school grounds was just a huge disappointment, but you still hoped that the rest of the property would have a few specters willing to interact with you.

You made your way up the stairs that led to a higher level of ground, once again making sure that your camera wasn’t shaking too much as you tried to not trip on the broken concrete steps, as a renewed sense of energy flowed throughout you at the sight of your next destination.

“Okay, folks, the next place on our list is… the dorms? Oh, this should definitely have something!”

As you approached the entrance to the dorms, you silently noted that it looked relatively nice compared to the other buildings you had seen earlier; it still looked pretty old and was probably not fit for human use, but given how long the academy had been closed, you expected to see a bunch of plants taking over the building or a wall having collapsed or just something other than a decent-looking building that could potentially be used again if someone cleaned it up a bit.

The doors to the building were wide-open, and you noticed that a thin film seemed to be covering the entrance — it kind of looked like invisible silk, the only hint of it being there being the way it reflected the moonlight to make it look like it was slightly glowing.

It was really pretty to look at… but that wasn’t going to keep you from entering the building.

You walked straight on through, shaking off the film from yourself once you were completely inside. The film was actually really sticky, but that didn’t stop you from thoroughly removing it from your clothes and equipment, tossing all of it onto the floor afterwards.

With a click of your new flashlight’s power button, you swept a beam of light around the area, and took a quick look around the interior of the lobby of the hopefully-haunted dorms. It had two floors, metal staircases and walkways allowing people to access the upper floor, and a total of sixteen doors that you guessed led to the actual dorm rooms; the smaller-than-expected amount of dorm rooms made you wonder if only sixteen students attended this school at a time, or if this was just a case of the people in charge stuffing their students into rooms like sardines in a can.

Neither of those options helped make the place look any better, and only served to make it more obvious on why exactly this place failed as badly as it did.

Your train of thought was interrupted by the feeling of a drop of water landing on your head, and you immediately looked up, the sight of a dark shape on the ceiling catching your attention. You moved your flashlight to where the dark shape was, revealing the shape to be a giant spider.

Its six legs were spread out over a decent portion of the ceiling, a variety of items — a few of which you noticed were a bucket of water, a spray bottle filled with some sort of blue liquid, and a cleaning rag — hanging from said-legs… and that was when you realized that it was missing a set of legs, meaning that it couldn’t actually be a giant spider and was a different kind of bug.

Unless you counted the two arms that were attached to the human torso sticking out from the body as “legs”.

The human half of the creature was dressed in typical maid attire — the professional kind of attire, not the type seen in anime — and was holding a sponge in one of her hands, the object clearly related to the rest of the things she was carrying with her on the ceiling.

You and her just stared at each other, your neck craned up to look at her as she craned her neck to look down at you, before you averted your eyes and puffed out your cheeks.

“Darn it, just a spider maid doing whatever a spider maid does.”

Your attention was brought back to the spider maid when she gracefully landed on the floor in front of you, especially due to how she managed to keep all of her cleaning supplies from flying all over the place in the process. She spent only a brief moment glancing at the entrance to the dorms, a hint of confusion on her face, before fixing her gaze onto you.

The expression on her face was serious, and you moved your flashlight to point away from her when you noticed that she was squinting from the beam of bright light being directed at her face.

“Pardon me, but…” Her voice was steady, her tone polite but not overly warm. “...could you explain why you’re here?”

“Oh, I’m just looking for ghosts. Have you seen any?”

“...ghosts?”

“Yeah. You know… ghosts, spirits, specters, phantoms-” You walked around the lobby as you spoke, keeping a smile on your face even as you discovered that every single door leading to a dorm room was locked, making them another area you couldn’t investigate. “-maybe a demon? But I’m mostly looking for the “used-to-be-a-human-but-now-they’re-dead” kinda thing.”

“I’m…” The spider maid hesitated, arms held together in front of her body. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

You let go of the doorknob you were attempting to jiggle open, turning to the spider maid with a disappointed frown on your face. “Awww… you haven’t?”

“...my apologies.”

“Well, that’s alright.” You began heading towards the entrance to the dorms, a smile returning to your face as you mentally reassured yourself that you still had a lot of ground to cover. “Sorry for bothering you. I’ll figure it out on my own. You can just get back to cleaning.”

The spider maid jolted a little where she stood, reaching a hand out to you. “Ah, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you’re allowed on the premises…!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll only be here ‘til sunrise, or until I find a ghost. I won’t break anything, promise!”

“I assure you, that is not my concern!”

- - - - -

The distance between the dorms and the school building was incredibly short, and you only spent less than a minute walking between the two locations before arriving at the once-grand entrance to the place where all those talented teenagers were taught all those years ago. The door closed behind you as you took in your new surroundings, an excited smile on your face.

“Whoa, this place looks like it’s straight out of a movie about, like, the apocalypse! Cool!”

You made sure your camera got a good view of the grass and flowers growing out of the floor, before moving it up to see the absolute mess the front hall was; it was hard to imagine what all of this had looked like when the place was still in operation, but it was probably less cool then.

“What are you doing?”

An unknown voice pulled your attention away from your camera, and your eyes darted around the immediate area to find a teenage boy standing a couple meters away from you. He looked to be around your age, and was wearing a plain black gakuran with white buttons; he honestly appeared rather unremarkable, if one were to ignore how unusually pale his skin was and how his white hair shone brightly in the moonlight streaming through the windows.

You shifted slightly where you stood, only one thought running through your mind as you took in how pale this otherwise-average teenage boy was.

“...ghost?”

“H-Huh?”

You took a step towards him, causing him to take a step back. “Are you a ghost?”

“Uh, n-no?”

You took another step towards him, causing him to take another step back. “No?”

“No!” The boy took yet another step back, appearing extremely nervous for some reason. “I am a robot, not a ghost!”

You stared at the boy with narrowed eyes for a moment longer, before eventually deciding to accept his claim of not being a ghost as true; as for his claim of being a robot, it didn’t seem to be true since he looked like a normal — albeit pale — human boy, but you weren’t really all that interested in wasting your time thinking about whether or not he could be one.

All that mattered was whether or not he was a ghost… and he wasn’t one, so that was that.

You turned away from the boy, and towards one of the hallways. “Then I’ll just have to keep searching.”

“W-Wait! Where are you going?!”

“To wherever the ghosts are! Goodbye!”

“H-Hey…!”

- - - - -

The basement gave off the exact vibes you were hoping for: creepy, damp… and, hopefully, haunted by a ton of ghosts of all kinds.

The boy from before — who you learned was named K1-B0, or, as he said you could call him, “Keebo” — followed you around as you inspected the library; it definitely looked like a place where a murder could occur, but, unfortunately, there wasn’t any evidence to suggest that one had taken place there. Even counting the cool door you found hidden behind a bookcase, which Keebo himself didn’t know was there, there wasn’t anything of interest to be found in that room.

It wasn’t until you entered the game room did you find any signs of life, though they weren’t the signs of undead life you were searching for.

There was a short man with cat-like qualities in the room, a pair of holes in his beanie to allow his cat ears to poke through it while his tail hung lazily behind him. He had something that resembled a cigarette in his mouth, but the lack of smoke suggested it was something else; you guessed that it was probably a candy cigarette due to it being nearly-identical to a real one.

The short cat man hummed, taking the candy cigarette between his fingers. “Keebo, who’s this?”

“Oh, this is… um…” Keebo looked at you, an unsure look on his face. “You… never actually told me your name, did you?”

“Why? Is that important?” You asked, your eyes choosing to wander around the room you were in instead of look at the possible-robot boy as you spoke — the machines looked to be in pretty good condition surprisingly, especially when compared to the rest of the school — before they stopped on the short cat man. “But I’m just a humble ghost hunter, looking for… well, ghosts!”

The short cat man raised an eyebrow. “They let a ghost hunter into the school?”

“I’m just visiting.”

“Right…” The short cat man turned his gaze towards Keebo. “I don’t think they’re supposed to be here.”

Keebo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Huh? Are you sure?”

“I don’t think a school like this would let in a ghost hunter.”

“A-Alright. Then I’ll escort them off the premises immediately-” Keebo looked away from the short cat man and to where you were. “-so I’ll need you to please come with- huh?”

Keebo blinked a few times, staring at the spot where you used to be before looking around and realizing that you were no longer in the room with him and the short cat man.

“Oh no!”

The short cat man sighed, his shoulders falling slightly. “Guess we should go stop them.”

- - - - -

“So the basement was a bust, but there’s still plenty more to check out!”

You held the camera up to your eyes and looked through its screen at the hallway in front of you, your pace steady as you made sure to capture any interesting bits of deterioration that you saw on film to put in your video later. This place was probably one of the coolest places you had ever hunted for ghosts in, though actually finding a spirit or two would make it a whole lot cooler.

The stairs leading to the next floor were the first thing you stumbled upon after coming up from the basement, but you skipped past them in favor of checking out the rest of the first floor first — to no avail, it seemed. The gym yielded no results from any of your devices, the tower that forced you to walk up five floors’ worth of stairs just had a whole lot of nothing at the top, and now you were just making your way back to the stairs a little more disappointed than before.

It was only when you heard noises coming from somewhere on the right of you did you perk up, swiftly turning on your heel and rushing towards the source of the noises.

“Alright, where are the ghosts?!”

You kicked open the doors of the room that you heard the noises coming from as you yelled, revealing a dining hall to the camera that you held up in front of you; just like with the rest of the first floor, it had been overtaken by plants of all kinds, but, unlike the rest of the first floor, there were people present in the room — hopefully ghost people.

“Nyeh?!”

“Don’t worry, Himiko! I’ll protect you!”

There were two girls present in the room: one of which was sitting at the table with a plate of food in front of her and one of which was currently striking a fighting stance after having jumped up from her seat when you kicked the doors open. You noted that a plate of food was also sitting in the spot where the girl that was currently glaring you down had previously been.

You lowered your camera as you looked between the two girls, clear surprise written on the face of the one still sitting down and a protective glare on the one that looked ready to attack you.

“...are there any ghosts in here?”

The girl striking the fighting stance kept her pose as her multiple tails spread out behind her, an obvious attempt to make herself look bigger. “Hold it right there! You don’t get to ask questions!”

“Is that a no?”

“I said no questions!” The multi-tailed girl let out a low growl. “Now, apologize to Himiko for scaring her!”

You simply stared at the multi-tailed girl as she gestured to the one still sitting at the table, before eventually moving your gaze over. The moment you looked at the girl sitting at the table, you noticed that she seemed to shrink, her shaky gaze refusing to connect with yours.

“My bad, g.”

“What kind of apology is that?!”

“N-No, it’s fine…” The girl at the table — Himiko — spoke up, still clearly nervous. “Everything’s f-fine…”

The room fell into silence after she spoke, the girl sitting at the table still refusing to look at you as the multi-tailed girl continued to glare at you. You just let your gaze wander around the room instead of focusing on either of them, debating with yourself how much of the footage you had already captured would make it into the finished video, before your eyes came to a rest on the plates of food sitting on the table; the delicious scent of it made you a little jealous of the girls.

You only had a couple of water bottles and a few granola bars stashed away in your backpack, which helped you not starve during your trip here but still left much to be desired.

“Did you get that food here?”

Himiko jolted at the sound of your voice, before slightly leaning away from the beam of light you were pointing at her and her plate of food. “Mmm-hmm. I made it myself… with magic~.”

She let a smile onto her face as she said the last word, the tone of her voice indicating that she was talking about something she was really proud of; this was also when you noticed the pointy witch hat sitting atop her head, which helped make her claim seem a lot more valid.

“Cool! Say, could you use magic to find ghosts?”

“Depends on the spell. I don’t focus on that kind of magic, though.”

You pouted as your eyebrows furrowed. “I thought witches could do anything?”

“Nyeh… I could, if I really tried, but that sounds tiring…” Himiko scratched the side of her head, her smile falling into a lazy frown. “And I prefer the term “mage” more than “witch”.”

The multi-tailed girl put herself between you and Himiko, dropping her protective glare for a proud smile as she fanned her tails out behind her, still continuing to try and make herself look bigger than she actually was. “And I’m Tenko, her loyal fox familiar!”

“Eh?” Himiko looked at Tenko with her eyebrows furrowed. “No, you’re not.”

Tenko froze in place for a solid few seconds before her tails and ears drooped, the pride in her stance disappearing as she swiveled around to face the mage. “Aw, please, Himiko?! I’ll be the bestest, most loyal familiar in the world!”

“No, that’s gross.”

You just let out a sigh as you adjusted your grip on your camera and flashlight.

Darn.

Yet another room with nothing of value in it.

- - - - -

“Whoever chose the hot-pink polka-dotted pattern for these stairs gets a round of applause from me. A true genius in interior design.”

You were now on the second floor of the school building, ready to face whatever ghouls may be lurking up here, and the very first thing you noticed was that the state of this floor looked exactly the same as the first floor; plants grew out of every crack and crevice they were able to squeeze through, showing how much of a field day nature had with the school after it shut down.

The decrepit state of it all just raised your hopes for finding a ghost within the halls of this disappointment of an educational facility once again, one probably being mere moments away.

You just needed to proceed forward to finally find it.

The sound of multiple voices down the hallway made you perk up, your excitement rising as you headed towards the source to see three figures walking your way.

“Thanks for coming to help me choose a gift for her. I’m not exactly sure what she’d like.”

“Nonsense, it’s a hero’s duty to help his sidekick, right? We’ll get her something she’ll love!”

“Of course we will, but maybe asking him for help with things like this isn’t the best decision. He hardly understands Earth culture as is.”

“Aw, don’t talk like that, Maki Roll! I understand Earth stuff just fine!”

The three figures froze the moment you shined your flashlight on them, and you tilted your head as you took a step closer to inspect them better, a glint of silver flying through the air where your head used to be as you did so. You retracted your step as you blinked, glancing back to see that a knife was now sticking out of the wall, before returning your attention to the three figures.

There were two boys and a girl, all of whom looked to be around your age.

“...so, are any of you ghosts?”

“H-Huh?”

You leaned towards the boy who uttered that sound in response to you, nodding to yourself as you noticed how unnaturally pale he was — okay, yeah, the last pale boy you ran into wasn’t a ghost, but this boy seemed to be even paler than him — which was brought out even more from how dark his hair and school uniform were. He looked like a promising possible ghost.

“You’re really pale, so you must be a ghost, right?”

“No, I’m a…” The boy leaned back from you, squinting his eyes as he brought up an arm to block the blinding light you were pointing at his face. “...a vampire!”

You narrowed your eyes at him in suspicion. “You sure?”

“Y-Yes…?”

You let out a hum as you backed up from him and moved your flashlight away from his face, before turning your attention to the other guy in the trio; his skin was a bright green, the color clashing with his predominantly-purple fashion choices and making him hard to look at.

“You.” You pointed your flashlight at him. “Are you a ghost? You don’t really look like one…”

“No…” His posture wasn’t as timid as the vampire’s, and he was the only one of the three to have a smile on his face. “I’m what you guys call… what’s the word? An… “alien”? The name’s Kaito Momota, Luminary of the-”

You let out a small groan, cutting him off as you puffed out your cheeks. “Darn, I’m not looking for aliens.”

“H-Hey!”

With the two boys confirmed to not be the undead spirits you were searching for, you turned your attention to the girl. She looked relatively normal compared to the boys, her skin neither looking sickly nor radioactive, but on closer inspection, you noticed that some of her skin was stained a dark red color — those areas were her hands and a majority of her forearms, as well a pair of markings on her face that resembled tear streaks in everything but color.

“What are you looking at?”

You snapped out of your thoughts and focused on the entirety of the girl’s face, the expression she was wearing an excellent example of the phrase “if looks could kill”; her eyes seemed to be glowing as she glared at you, her sudden hostility actually managing to surprise you a little.

“...are you a-”

“No.”

“Huh?” The alien looked towards the girl, his smile dropping into a confused frown. “I thought you were-”

“Shut up.”

“But the whole “Bloody Maki” thing-?”

“Do you wanna die?”

The alien rubbed the back of his head with his hand, his eyebrows furrowed as he let out a small huff. “Geez, you don’t have to get all angry about it.”

“Um… guys?” The vampire spoke up, causing the two to look at him. “They left.”

The trio fell into a silence as they looked around at each other, the fading sound of footsteps in the distance as the source traveled further into the second floor all they heard before a group of much louder footsteps ascended the nearby stairs. The vampire looked over to see two more of his friends arriving, glancing between them as he took in the expressions on their faces.

“Keebo? Ryoma?”

- - - - -

The second floor turned out to be nothing but a huge disappointment, and to make matters worse, so did the third; you would be lying if you said you weren’t starting to lose hope in this place being haunted by now, that sour feeling even making it hard for you to find joy in all the non-haunted things of interest within the building, such as-

“Who puts an entire tennis court on the THIRD floor? Man, this place really was eccentric!”

-but your mood took a turn for the better once you entered the fourth floor.

The generic school setting was replaced by something straight out of a horror film, with a wooden floor that creaked with every little movement you made, walls with mysterious stains splattered upon them, and dim red lighting that seemed to serve more as an atmosphere-maker rather than an actual lightsource to let people see their surroundings; it felt like a place where a brutal murder could have occurred, a place where someone could have taken their last breath.

It was perfect.

You felt a smile replace the depressed frown that had settled onto your face as you surveyed your surroundings, your flashlight sweeping over everything as its beam flickered a few times.

And then it completely went out.

You blinked a couple of times as you stared at the darkness around you, your eyes clearly having not been ready for the sudden change in brightness, before you shook the flashlight in your hand and clicked the power button a few times, only for nothing to happen.

“This had new batteries in it… wait-”

You could practically see the glow from the imaginary light bulb that lit up above your head.

“Technology not working…”

You swiftly turned on your heel, only to see a wall — a real wall this time — that most definitely wasn’t there before; the staircase had completely disappeared, vanished into thin air.

“...and changing architecture! This can only mean one thing…!”

You turned to face forward once again, stars in your eyes when you saw that the hallway was now seemingly stretching out to infinity, no potential end in sight. It felt like you had entered into a nightmare, trapped with no other option than to proceed forward even if you didn’t want to.

But you definitely wanted to.

You let a few excited giggles escape your lips as you continued forward, your camera carefully held up to your eyes as you let it get a good view of your endless surroundings; you didn’t want your audience to miss whatever cool thing might happen here, the mere thought of being able to show them such irrefutable evidence of ghostly activity fueling your already-growing enthusiasm and making it all the more annoying to see the screen suddenly become engulfed in static.

The screen had never acted up like this before; something must be messing with your camera.

That wasn’t a very nice thing to do.

You shook your camera around slightly — hoping that you could somehow disperse the static covering the screen doing so, even though you knew it didn’t work like that — before you felt a chill run down your spine, your entire body tensing up from the sudden sensation. The air around you felt heavier as an invisible force squeezed your lungs, the lightheaded feeling from your inability to get enough oxygen almost distracting you from the feeling of being watched.

“Nee-heehee~!”

The strange laugh echoing in the endless hallway made you pause, before you puffed out your cheeks and continued to fiddle around with your camera a moment later; you didn’t like how the ghost wasn’t waiting until everything was okie-dokie with your camera to come out, but after all the disappointment you had dealt with tonight, you were just glad it finally decided to show up.

You could only let out a small gasp once the static on the screen cleared up, your difficulty breathing making you unable to say anything more, before you swiveled around to point your camera down the never-ending hallway. Through the screen, you saw the silhouette of a short boy — he wasn’t as short as the cat man from earlier, but definitely had a good few inches to grow to reach what one could consider an “average” height — standing a good distance away from you, completely cloaked in shadows in spite of the dim red lighting above him.

The figure just continued to stand there as you moved the camera to the side, your eyes narrowing as you brought up your flashlight and repeatedly clicked the power button until it flickered back to life. 

The moment the beam of light poured out of the device, you pointed it at the figure to reveal-

“Aw, man… it’s just some kid. Darn.”

You could practically feel all of the excited energy that you had built up evaporate to leave nothing but a desert of disappointment in its wake; this had been the perfect moment for a ghost to show up, but instead all you had gotten was some boy who looked like an asylum escapee.

“Wha-? Who are you calling “kid”?” 

The insulted look on the boy’s face only lasted for a moment before easily shifting into a mischievous grin. “You’re pretty bold to say something like that, you know.”

You moved your flashlight away from the boy as you checked your camera, holding in an annoyed sigh when you noticed that the screen was glitching out again; however, instead of static this time, it was just completely black, as if you were recording in a pitch black room.

“See, ever since you stepped foot onto these grounds, I’ve been watching you. You don’t seem to realize-”

“That’s creepy.” You stopped the recording before resuming it to see if that would fix the issue. It didn’t. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Heyyy, it’s rude to interrupt someone when they’re talking.” The smile on the boy’s face dropped into a frown as he furrowed his eyebrows, his hands brought up in front of his chest as he clenched them into fists. “Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”

You looked up from your camera and towards him. “Oh, sorry. Continue.”

The boy narrowed his eyes at you, you and him locked into a staring contest for a few moments before he appeared to deem your level of attention as acceptable, the mischievous grin that had been on his face before returning as he held his arms out wide beside him.

“You don’t seem to realize the danger you’re in… though, from my experience, humans typically aren’t that smart anyways.”

“Aren’t you a human?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Human I may appear to be, but human I am not.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Are you a-”

“-a ghost?” The boy cut you off before chuckling and holding a finger up his lips. “You’ve been asking that question a lot, haven’t you? But, no. Not that, either. I’m something far more powerful than some measly spirit. You see, I’m what you puny little humans call a- where are you going?”

You glanced back at the boy you had walked past as he rambled on about power or whatever, pausing for just a moment in your trek forward as you gestured at the endless hallway in front of you. “I’m off to find ghosts. Don’t you already know that?”

“Geez, don’t you have any patience?” The annoyance in his voice sounded superficial, and the fact that a smile was still on his face supported that. “Most humans would feel — SHOULD feel — honored to be in my presence, and here you are, walking right past me like it’s nothing. Were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“Bold of you to assume I was held.” You blinked. “...sorry, force of habit. I don’t think so?”

A hint of confusion flickered across his face, quickly covered up by the mischievous smile he was intent on keeping displayed. “Well, if anything, you’re not boring like most humans are. Your reactions are a lot more interesting than the usual scared ones I get.”

“Thanks.”

“It makes me wonder how you’d react if you saw how I really look, though I know I should probably just stay in this form.” The boy caught up to where you were, matching your pace as you continued your journey down the hallway. “You should consider yourself lucky that I’m not showing my true form to you, you know. Your mind would shatter from just a glimpse of it alone-”

“Weird flex, but okay.”

You paused for a second at the sight of a door located a little further down the hallway, before rushing towards it to see if it was real… and it was; before you could do anything with it, though, the non-ghost boy popped up into your peripheral vision, a carefree smile on his face.

“Anywayyys, I think I’ve held you up long enough.” He held his arms behind his head, his posture relaxed. “So feel free to go along now. Continue your little ghost hunt. I’ll just continue to watch you from the shadows, okay?”

You tilted your head, a smile also on your face. “Okay! But you should really find a better hobby. I can suggest a few things if you’d like.”

“Nope! Not interested! Bye-bye now!”

There was a sudden pressure pushing against your back, the source of it unknown to you as you clearly saw the boy still standing next to you with both of his arms visible, before you were shoved through the door that you didn’t remember being opened; you felt weightless for just the briefest moment as a loud slam echoed in your ears, and then everything went black.

- - - - -

You let out a small groan as you opened your eyes, the sight of a tiled floor greeting you; you simply stared at it for a moment before you pushed yourself onto your knees and immediately went to adjust the heavy bag on your back that had been knocked askew. With that settled, you picked up your camera and flashlight — which were both thankfully not broken — before getting onto your feet and looking at your new surroundings, your eyes widening at the sight of them.

The room you were now in had multiple floors within it, each one absolutely filled to the brim with relics of all kinds; whether or not they had actual value was debatable, but they looked to be covered in layers upon layers of dust, so you could tell that they must be really old.

And old stuff had a great chance of being haunted.

“Oooh, you think I should take a souvenir from this place? Maybe I’ll end up taking a new friend home too!”

“Please do not treat these objects like mere trinkets… or I’ll tear out your nerves.”

An unknown voice caused your outstretched hand to pause right above a display case, your fingers barely brushing against the glass, and you turned your head to see a man — correction, a person with the upper-half of a man and the lower-half of a snake — sitting less than a foot away from you; his human-half donned clothing that was very reminiscent of a military uniform, as well as a mask that completely covered the lower-half of his face and his neck.

You were surprised at how close he was to you; you had no idea he was even there before he had spoken. His snake-half was rather long, and was spread out across the floor in such a way that it seemed like he was using it as a makeshift wall to keep you from wandering around all willy-nilly. You were confident in thinking that you could just easily step over the smallest end of it — and hoisting yourself over the biggest end didn’t seem like too much trouble either — but it seemed rude to ignore his effort.

“Ah, sorry.” You pulled your hand back. “Are these yours?”

He hummed, gaining a look of thought. “To say that they are “mine” wouldn’t necessarily be the truth. I’m merely the caretaker of these objects at this moment in time. It’s like asking a security guard if they own the works of art they are guarding — I’m simply the one watching over them.”

“So… they’re yours?”

The snake man looked down at you for a few silent seconds, no discernible expression on his face — at least, from what you could see of the half that wasn’t covered by his mask.

“...yes, they’re mine, and I don’t appreciate having others touch them so recklessly.”

“Okay. I won’t touch them then, Snake Man, but-” You turned away from him as you brought your camera up, letting it get a good shot of the items in the glass case in front of you. “-could you tell me if any of them are haunted? Possessed? Carrying a spirit of the deceased?”

“You may call me Korekiyo. I assume you are specifically interested in “ghost”-related supernatural activity…?”

“Yeah! I’m a ghost hunter!” You flashed Korekiyo a confident smile as you held up your camera and flashlight proudly. “Or, as the professionals call it, a “paranormal investigator”!”

“You are… a ghost hunter?”

“Yep!”

He muttered to himself, his limbs close to his body as he rested his hand on his chin. “So, it really is like the others said…”

“Hmm?”

“Ah, it’s nothing important.” Korekiyo waved his hand dismissively, adjusting the position of his tail slightly. “But I’m afraid none of these objects are haunted, at least not in the way you’d like them to be.”

“Darn.” Any disappointment you felt was already gone by your next breath. “Goodbye, then!”

You stepped over Korekiyo’s tail, having to hop forward a bit when your back foot got caught, and headed over to the nearest door; you had no idea which door you came in through, your memory fuzzy between when you were pushed and when you woke up, but all of that wasn’t important to you as you focused on the hallway beyond the door you just opened — it looked exactly like the hallway you were trapped in before, but wasn’t an endless nightmare anymore.

The boy from before was also nowhere to be seen, but you hardly spared him a single thought when you realized you could finally resume making some progress in your investigation. There wasn’t much left of the school to explore, but you weren’t just going to leave a job half-done.

Korekiyo simply watched you leave the room, amusement in his eyes. “Kekeke… humans truly are such fascinating creatures…”

- - - - -

After skipping past the staircase that led to the fifth floor, you came upon another room on the other side of the fourth floor; opening the door to that room revealed an artist’s paradise, a white room filled with everything an aspiring artist might need — paint, blank canvases, blocks of wax, various crafting tables, a huge log for wood carving with chiseling supplies, brushes of all kinds and sizes… and, of course, an overwhelming creative atmosphere encouraging you to create.

You took a step into the room, noticing the splashes of black paint splattered on the walls and floor, before directing your attention to the wax statue sitting in the middle of the room.

It was clearly a work-in-progress, a roughly-carved humanoid shape, but was still impressive.

“Yah-hah! Who might you be?”

You jolted at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, immediately turning on your heel towards the source and scanning the area with a narrowed gaze before your eyes stopped on a painting that was hanging on the wall; it was extremely lifelike, the artist apparently a master at their craft.

The painting depicted a girl staring at the viewer, her body leaning to the side as a curious smile was on her face. You copied the action with your own body, locking your eyes with hers.

You and her just stared at each other as you waited for something to happen; it was a lot like a staring contest, except that you knew that you would lose this one since you were the only party who actually needed to blink. Even so, you still held out for quite a while before you gave in.

And that was when you noticed that the painting changed, the girl now leaning to the other side.

You adjusted your body to match the new pose, causing the girl’s expression to change to a closed-eye smile as she straightened her posture and clasped her hands together. 

“Nyahahaha, how fun!”

Your eyes widened as you let out a gasp and raised a hand — the one holding the flashlight — to your mouth, your gaze now glued to the lifelike painting in front of you; while the background of the painting remained completely static, the paint making up the girl herself shifted around the canvas with each of her movements. She was so animated, so unnaturally alive.

“Are… are you a haunted painting?” You tried to keep your camera steady as you pointed it at the girl, your hands shaking slightly. “A spirit trapped within the frame?”

The girl hummed, gently rocking her head back-and-forth as she thought. “I guess so?”

You let out another gasp as a smile slowly began to make its way onto your face; finally, after encountering nothing significant within this school, you had found what you were looking for.

A ghost.

You quickly approached the painting, inspecting it from every angle you could as you held your camera up to your face; you needed to capture every single glorious moment of this on video.

“Okay, this is super amazing! Um… what do I wanna ask you first…?” Your voice rushed out of your mouth, matching the pace of your quickening heartbeat, as you tried to stop your hands from shaking so much; you needed this footage to be as perfect as possible. “Oh, I know! Does it suck being trapped inside of a painting? I imagine you can’t really do much in there…”

“No, no, Angie is not trapped. I can go between any of the paintings hung around the academy to my heart’s content!”

“Is that what those are all for?” You tilted your head, only barely recalling the objects that you had kind of just ignored before now; they had seemed out-of-place within the crumbling interior of the building, but that was about it. “I thought those were just a strange decoration decision.”

“But Atua says that it’s time for me to move up a level!” Angie let out a laugh. “I’ve earned enough points to ascend to the third dimension!”

“What does that mean?”

“You see that wax statue over there?” She turned your attention over to the wax statue sitting in the middle of the room. “Once it is finished, that will become my new body!”

“A spirit transferring from a painting to a wax statue…” You muttered to yourself, tapping your chin with your flashlight as you stared at the blocky humanoid shape, before turning back to look at Angie with a smile on your face. “That should be possible, yeah?”

“If Atua says it is possible, then it is possible! He is never wrong!” Angie clasped her hands together joyously, her smile seeming to become brighter as she continued speaking. “Oh, what joy! With a new body, Angie will be able to mingle with all her friends, playing and dancing and eating Kirumi’s delectable meals! Nyahahaha!”

You nodded, the girl’s enthusiasm proving to be quite contagious, before you furrowed your eyebrows as you thought a little more about what she said. “How exactly are you able to do that, though? Make a wax statue while trapped in a painting…?”

“Oh! It is not I who makes the art, but Atua!” Her arms wrapped around herself as she spoke and closed her eyes, her smile a bit more peaceful now. “Angie offers her body as His vessel, and He creates such beautiful things with it! That’s why Angie needs to be completely alone to do so, so Atua can create without distraction!”

“Ah, understandable.”

Not really, but you felt like questioning her more about it wouldn’t get you anywhere.

“I’m just glad I finally found a ghost!” You said, adjusting your grip on your camera as you let it get a good shot of Angie swaying inside her frame, “I was starting to think that there weren’t any around here, my search having been a complete bust until now.”

“Hmm? That’s strange.” Angie tapped the tip of a paintbrush’s handle on her chin — you spent only a moment wondering where it came from, before assuming that the haunted paint was able to shift into anything she wanted it to — as a look of thought crossed her face. “There may be no others exactly like Angie here, but there should be other ghosts around. I know at least two!”

Your smile dropped from your face as you blinked, your brain pausing for a moment. “...wait, really? But… but I’m almost to the fifth floor and haven’t seen any besides you…”

You shook your head, putting a smile back on your face as you looked at Angie.

“Anyways, I should probably get going. I’ve got one more floor to check, and, hey, maybe that’s where the other two are?”

Angie raised a hand, her smile brighter than the sun. “Okay! Bye-yonara!”

“Bye! Good luck with your art!”

The moment after you stepped out of the room and closed the door, you heard a soft click come from it; you paused before shaking the doorknob, revealing that the door was now locked. There was no possible way Angie had been the one to lock it, her new wax body not ready for use, but then you remembered that “Atua” person she kept mentioning — he must have been behind it.

“...man, he’s so lucky to be friends with that ghost.”

- - - - -

“Thanks again for helping me. I know it can be a plain bother…”

“Hey, it’s no problem.”

The two figures on the fifth floor had their attention suddenly shifted from each other as they heard something thump near the stairs, their smiles falling as they glanced at each other and rushed over to the source of the sound; there was a person they had never seen before spread out over the top of the stairs, breathing heavily as they grasped at the white tiled floor.

You were currently in such a position for multiple reasons, but it was mainly because you had been hit by an unexpected wave of exhaustion while ascending the final staircase; this must be your punishment for not getting enough rest and nutrition before heading out on this hunt, made worse by the heavy backpack resting on your back. You barely managed to crawl up the stairs on all fours before collapsing, arms on the fifth floor as your legs laid behind you on the steps.

You spent a moment more like this before looking up from the floor, taking in the decor of the final floor you would investigate on your never-ending hunt for spirits.

“This place looks religious…” You muttered, before noticing the two figures standing just a few feet away — the girl looked pretty plain, donning a simple school uniform and a pair of glasses, while the boy looked kind of like an e-boy, his skin having a green tint to it — with varied looks of surprise on their faces, “...are either of you guys a ghost?”

The girl and boy just looked at each other before the girl spoke. “N-No…?”

“Oh… well, have you seen anything that might suggest ghostly activity on this floor?”

The two glanced at each other once again, before both of them hesitantly shook their heads at you; you just let out a groan in response before dropping your own head onto the cold floor, one of your cheeks now smushed up against the smooth tile.

The plain girl leaned over to the boy, a hand cupped near her mouth. “Is this the one the others have been looking for?”

“Maybe, but… they don’t seem to be as big a threat as the others said they were.”

The girl flinched as the boy began walking over to you, her hand reaching out to him in slight panic. “Rantaro…!”

“Don’t worry, Tsumugi.” He looked from her to you, crouching down slightly. “Hey, you okay?”

You pulled yourself up, shifting into a sitting position at the top of the stairs, before looking at the boy; the green tint of his skin was more obvious up-close, and you noticed that his hands were webbed, thin skin connecting his fingers together. Your nose crinkled for just a second when you noticed a faint fishy odor in the air, before you gave a dismissive wave and averted your eyes.

“Don’t… don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay after I… after I catch my breath…”

Tsumugi held her hands close to her chest as she glanced between you and Rantaro, before hurrying forth when she saw the boy gesture to the stairs with his head. She quickly descended down the stairs as Rantaro stood back up, giving you one last glance before following the girl at a more normal and relaxed pace, leaving you completely alone on the fifth floor.

- - - - -

You spent the next few minutes sitting at the top of the stairs, regulating your breathing and devouring a few granola bars and a water bottle — you became even more jealous of that meal you saw Himiko eating earlier — before you found yourself feeling a bit better; it helped that you also got to use your little break to admire the atmosphere present on the fifth floor.

Your first impression of it was still highly-accurate, and you wondered why anyone building a school would decide to make the top floor resemble a church of all things. Your research didn’t bring up any information regarding the academy being religious, which was kind of disappointing since places of a religious background tended to be hot-spots for paranormal activity; it was due to the energy of the places or whatever — you didn’t really care about the details.

But besides that, from the weirdly-high-tech areas outside, the hot-pink polka-dotted-patterned staircases, the horror-movie-inspired fourth floor, and the church-like fifth floor, this place really made for an interesting trip; the people who designed it deserved a round of applause.

There was something bothering you, though.

You looked towards the stain-glass windows, ignoring the designs portrayed on them as you focused on the bright light coming through them; according to the schedule you had made for this trip, daylight should still be a few hours away — maybe even more considering the way you had sped through the second and third floors due to the lack of ghostly activity.

You whipped out your phone for the first time in a while, squinting your eyes at the screen once you looked at the time. “What the heck…? That doesn’t seem right…”

The clock on your phone was telling you that it was an hour past daybreak, and the light coming through the windows told you that it was an hour past daybreak, but you were sure as all heck it wasn’t an hour past daybreak. Your biological clock refused to let you believe that.

But all the evidence was there.

You let out a sigh as you turned off your flashlight, stuffing it into your backpack before you got up onto your feet and turned your camera to face you. “Well, folks, I guess this is the end of my search into the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles. It wasn’t a complete failure since we got to meet Angie, but I wish we could’ve found those other two ghosts she said were here.”

The sound of your footsteps echoed slightly in the empty halls of the academy as you began your long trek down the various floors, the light streaming through the windows giving the entire place a different atmosphere from before — it no longer seemed eerie, but rather peaceful.

That peaceful feeling was soon accompanied by the sound of a distant piano as you arrived on the second floor, the sweet melody making a smile come to your face. You were a little surprised to find out that there was a piano sitting somewhere in this school, but since you failed to search this floor thoroughly after running into that non-ghost trio, it became less of a surprise.

“Hey, folks-” You held the camera up to your face again. “-since we’re about to leave anyway, we might as well check out that piano, right? Maybe we’ll find one of the other ghosts there!”

That would be a great ending to your trip AND your video.

- - - - -

You bursted into the room where the music was coming from, a sudden cacophony of piano keys greeting your ears. Your eyes locked onto the girl sitting at the large instrument, a startled expression on her face as her hands sat on the keyboard.

“Darn, it’s just some regular girl.”

“H-Huh?”

“Sorry for interrupting your song. I’m just looking for ghosts.”

“You’re…” The girl blinked. “...looking for ghosts?”

“Yeah.” You gave a small nod to the girl before looking around the room, noticing how various music sheets covered the ground; most of them seemed to be near the grand piano sitting in the middle of the room. “I thought I could get in one last chance before I leave.”

The girl stood up from the piano bench, her gaze moving to the camera in your hands and the big backpack sitting on your back. “Oh! So you’ve been looking for a while?”

“I’ve been exploring the school all night to look for them. I was only able to meet Angie — the living painting — though.” You continued glancing around the room, raising your eyebrows at the large collection of CDs you saw on your left. “She said that there were at least two more around here, but I haven’t seen them anywhere yet.”

“Well, Maki’s not really a people-person, so I guess it makes sense that you haven’t seen her around…” The girl averted her eyes from you, a look of thought on her face. “And I know I haven’t seen you at all either. I guess we just missed each other? I was late to school today…”

“Hmm?” You tilted your head. “Sorry, I don’t see what that has to do with ghosts?”

She took another look at you, appearing to think for a moment before eventually nodding and letting a bright smile onto her face.

You found yourself blinking excessively and rubbing at your eyes as the girl suddenly became translucent; you were clearly able to see what was behind her, making the girl herself harder to focus on. However, your gaze was fully locked onto her as she appeared to get taller, your eyes darting downwards to see that she was now floating a good few inches above the ground.

“Wait…” You gasped, causing the girl to chuckle. “You’re a ghost!”

“Ta-da!” The girl clapped her hands together. “I’m a ghost!”

You immediately pointed your camera at her, stars in your eyes when you saw that she was appearing on the screen with no issues. She spun a little in the air as you filmed her, her hair and skirt flowing with her movements and creating a beautifully-haunting scene for you.

“Ah, I knew it was a good idea to follow the music!” You looked between the girl and your camera, a smile on your face. “That’s two out of three! I can now say this outing was a success!”

The girl let out another chuckle at your excitement.

“Say, could I ask you a few questions?” You walked around the girl, making sure to get some different — and appropriate — shots of her at different angles. “Just about some general stuff.”

She nodded, twirling around face you. “Sure!”

“Okay, so-” You went through the list of questions popping up in your head; the questions you wanted to ask this girl were extremely different to the ones you wanted to ask Angie, the types of ghosts they were so vastly different that it excited you to know that you got to see both. “-how easy is it for you to interact with material objects?”

“Oh, well… it’s kind of hard for me to touch things sometimes, except for the piano. I’ve never had any issues with that.” She wore an embarrassed smile on her face. “I know that’s a little bit stereotypical, though, for a ghost to play a piano.”

“No, it’s amazing!”

Her eyes widened. “I’m- I’m glad you think so!”

The room suddenly became a bit brighter as sunlight poured through the windows, the sight of which made the girl direct her attention towards it before she resumed looking at you.

“How about you ask me more questions as we head out? School’s almost over.”

You nodded, continuing to smile.

“Okay!”

- - - - -

Kaede — as you learned her name was — floated alongside you as you walked towards the entrance of the school. She had to remind you to pay attention to where you were going after you walked into a wall, your focus solely on her as you kept your camera pointed at her instead of on what was in front of you, but you hardly felt the pain in your face; it was nothing compared to the excitement coursing through your veins as Kaede happily answered all of your questions.

“I’ve never had someone so interested in me before,” Kaede said, floating backwards to face you, “At least, not like this. Most of the others are just “cool!” and then it’s over.”

“Well, I’ve never seen a ghost until last night!” You glanced away from the ghost girl for just a moment to make sure you didn’t trip over any of the plants spread across the floor; you didn’t care if you got hurt, but you didn’t want to risk breaking your camera right now. “They’ve just probably all gotten used to it because they see you all the time since you’re friends, right?”

Kaede hummed, putting a finger to her chin. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

You just smiled at the ghost girl floating beside you before you walked into another wall; after taking a step back and making sure your camera was okay, you noticed that it was actually the front door to the school building, but a small gasp from Kaede immediately pulled your attention away from it and back over to her to see that there was a look of realization on her face.

“Oh, I forgot to ask! You must be a new student, right?” She asked, swiveling around so that the two of you were both facing the front door, “I haven’t seen you at school before, and considering how you didn’t know how many ghosts were around here…”

“You’re not the first one to ask me that.” You pushed open the door, needing to do so since you, unfortunately, couldn’t go through walls like Kaede could. “But I’m actually just visiting-”

Your eyes didn’t even get a chance to adjust to the light outside before you were tackled to the ground, a strangled gasp escaping your lips as your body was harshly squeezed by some kind of thin binding. Your camera clattered to the ground a few feet away, and you hoped it was okay.

“Kirumi!” Kaede had an expression of confused panic on her face as she looked at the spider maid that had just tied you up with her web. “What’s going on?! What did you do that for?!”

“Ah, Kaede. Thank goodness you are uninjured.”

“Huh?!”

With your face pressed to the ground, you couldn’t see much of what was going on, and was only able to hear multiple pairs of footsteps heading your way, voices full of panic and confusion merging together into a cacophonic mess of sound… but you couldn’t care less about that.

You were just praying that your camera had survived its harsh fall onto the ground.

“W-Why is new friend in web?!”

“Ah-ha! I knew they were bad news the moment I saw them! They scared Himiko, after all!”

“Nyeh, I… I wasn’t scared! Just surprised!”

“Hmph, so they’ve finally been caught.”

“Thank goodness. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that they weren’t a student.”

“Well, I think it’s plain obvious due to their equipment, Keebo.”

You shifted your head to look upwards when a shadow cast itself over you, allowing you to see the boy from before — the one from the endless hallway, specifically; you had seen a lot of boys during your investigation of the school, but, unfortunately, none of them were ghosts.

“Aww… you got caught? How disappointing. I thought you were better than that.” The mock disappointment on his face shifted to a dismissive, and almost smug, smile. “I guess I helped you out for nothing, huh?”

The girl from the trio on the second floor — who you realized must be the final ghost by process of elimination, considering Kaede mentioned a ghost named “Maki” and the alien had referred to her as “Bloody Maki” before you had left — glared at the boy. “What did you just say?”

“Hmm?” The boy put his arms behind his head, an innocent smile on his face. “Oh, nothing important. I just messed with them for a bit on the fourth floor, that’s all.”

“Kokichi.” The vampire looked at the boy with a questioning glance. “Is that why we couldn’t find them when we followed after them? That was your doing?”

The short cat man adjusted his beanie, his ears twitching. “So that’s why it was like they disappeared…”

“I thought they were just able to slip by…” Keebo furrowed his eyebrows as he thought. “...but it was all because of Kokichi.”

“And it was a few hours after you informed me of them that they entered my lab,” Korekiyo added, a frame containing a painting with a concerned Angie in it in his arms, “So I’d say he kept them for… quite a while.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” You tried to adjust your position to glare at Kokichi. “I knew something felt wrong when I looked at the time! You took away precious time from my search, you jerk!”

“Wowww…” He didn’t look even slightly bothered, a smile still on his face. “You learn what I’m capable of, but you still insult me? You really are a bold one! At least you’re not disappointing in that regard�� but you should know that I actually helped you. If I hadn’t done anything, you would’ve just been caught, and then you would’ve never gotten to meet Angie or Kaede.”

He knew he was right, you knew he was right, and he knew that you knew he was right, but you puffed out your cheeks in annoyance anyways.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?” Kaede pleaded, glancing around at the others with a distressed frown on her face, “I have no idea what any of you are talking about! Why did you tie them up?!”

She looked at the vampire who came to stand beside her, a concerned expression on his face. “Shuichi?”

The vampire nervously smiled at the ghost girl.

“Sorry, Kaede… this person- they’re a human ghost hunter. We’ve actually been searching for them for hours, after Keebo and Ryoma-” Shuichi briefly gestured at the possible-robot boy and short cat man that were standing together at one edge of the group. “-told us about them.”

“Ghost…” Kaede blinked. “...hunter?”

Maki looked off to the side, fiddling with one of her twintails. “I could tell just by looking at them. These two idiots didn’t even realize at first.”

“H-Hey! Don’t say that about my sidekick and I!” Kaito was taken aback, his eyes wide as he looked at the bloody ghost girl standing next to him. “And how was I supposed to know what a “ghost hunter” is? I’ve never even heard of that before!”

“Please, there is no need for fighting,” The spider maid — Kirumi, based on what Kaede had said earlier — spoke up, “They have been caught, and everything is now under control.”

“Oh, oh! Angie has a question!” The girl in the painting raised a hand up, directing attention to herself as she continued to smile. “Um… what now? We can’t just keep them tied up, right?”

The group looked around at each other, waiting for someone to speak up; as time continued to pass by like this, with not a single word uttered, it became increasingly obvious that no one had thought about what they should do after they had caught you.

“What the fuck is going on over here?”

The sound of a new voice — this one oddly aggressive — caused everyone to look over at the source; you shifted where you laid to turn your head to see a girl wearing a pink school uniform that didn’t seem entirely appropriate in a school setting. She looked pretty normal if you were to ignore the horns, wings, and spiked tail she had — she must be some kind of demon.

“Are you all circle-jerkin’ without me?”

The demon looked around at everyone gathered in front of the school before spotting you on the ground, tied up tightly in Kirumi’s web, and looked at the spider maid with raised eyebrows.

“O-ho-ho! I didn’t know you were into that, Kirumi!”

Kirumi kept a calm expression displayed on her face, her hands politely folded in front of her body. “I assure you, this is a one-time thing. I do not enjoy trapping others in my web, but it is to ensure the safety of the group at this moment in time.”

“Safety of the group…?” The demon repeated, a brief moment passing before an annoyed frown appeared on her face, “Okay, I was joking the first time, but what the actual fuck is going on?”

The demon was answered by a mess of voices as multiple people tried to explain what was going on, the explanations prompting others to pop up with even more questions because they too, like the demon, had little to no idea what exactly was happening here.

You squirmed around on the ground during the confusion, trying to steady the weight of your backpack so that you could properly move around without being tipped over like a domino; your target to get to was your camera — if it didn’t break from its fall, it should still be recording since you never got to hit the pause or finish button before being rudely tackled. You wanted to make sure that the footage you got of Angie and Kaede — you hardly got any of Maki since you were fooled by her ghostly genius — was going to save properly. You knew that you would never get such irrefutable ghostly evidence like this ever again, this footage being your magnum opus.

You managed to wrestle an arm out the webbing, and reached out to grab your camera to-

“Yoink! I’ll just take this!”

The sight of your precious camera being snatched up by Kokichi made you freeze, before a burning fury erupted inside of you as you glared at the boy. “Hey! Give that back! It’s mine!”

He ignored you in favor of turning towards the demon.

“Hey, bitchlet-” Kokichi practically threw your precious camera towards her, your entire body tensing up and a small squeak escaping you the moment he let go of it. “-catch!”

“Wha-?!” The demon managed to catch your camera in her arms — to your great relief — despite her surprise; sure, her grip on it wasn’t the best, but it was better than seeing it crash onto the ground and break into a million pieces before your very eyes. “B-Bitchlet...?!”

You somehow managed to calm yourself down slightly by focusing on your breathing, trying to get yourself into a state of mind where you could think of something to do to save your camera, before your breath got caught in your throat at the sound of Kokichi’s voice deepening, the most unnerving and malicious grin you had ever seen taking its place on his face.

“Delete the footage.”

You began thrashing around in the webbing even before he finished speaking, trying to free the rest of your body as panic settled into your mind. “No-no-no-nooo…!”

The air was knocked out of you once again as you were pinned down, a gloved hand taking a hold of the arm you had already managed to free. You glanced up to see Kirumi standing above you as you struggled against her grip in vain, her strength far greater than yours.

The demon gave Kokichi an annoyed glare. “Geez, can’t you just do it yourself?”

“Well, yeahhh… but I can’t take away your only redeeming trait.” Kokichi put his arms behind his head, a simple smile on his face now. “Without the technology expertise, you’d just be a demonic prostitute, and that’s just too cruel. So get to it — chop, chop!”

The demon let out a “tch” sound, before she started fiddling with your camera. 

“Fine…”

She clicked a button.

“There.”

And you just stopped.

Kirumi raised an eyebrow in confusion when you stopped struggling, your body now lying limp on the ground with an unreadable expression. You felt numb — an entire night of your life was just wasted; you had nothing to show for your time here. You finally got evidence of ghosts on camera, irrefutable proof that could have shown the world the truth, and it was just deleted.

It was gone.

Like it never existed in the first place.

You blinked, finding yourself no longer on the ground but hanging from someone’s grasp, the webbing strong enough to support your weight. You tilted your head, looking up to see that the spider maid was the one holding you up; her strength really was something.

“Okay, the human’s been caught and the footage has been deleted,” Tsumugi said, looking slightly nervous as she looked around at everyone, “That's the end of the problem, right?”

Shuichi also looked nervous, but had a serious expression on his face. “No, we’ve still got to deal with them.”

“They know too much.” Maki fiddled with one of her twintails. “It’d be dangerous to just let them go.”

“W-Wait, if we can’t let them go…” Keebo looked at the bloody ghost, a nervous frown on his face. “...are you suggesting that we keep them here?”

“There’s no way we can do that!” Kaede spoke up, floating a little higher to bring attention to herself as she did so; even though you had lost your drive to continue forward, you felt a hint of a smile appear on your face at the sight of her. “We can’t just keep them here! That’s wrong!”

“Mmm, yeah…” Kokichi looked at his hand dismissively. “And there’s no reason to. We’ve already got Kirumi, and I doubt they’d be able to do a better job than her.”

Ryoma took his candy cigarette between his fingers, a calm expression on his face. “Well, we need to figure out something. We can’t let them go because they’re a risk to our safety, but we can’t keep them here against their will either.”

“Easy solution!” The demon placed her hands on her hips, a proud smile on her face. “We just blackmail the shit outta ‘em! Make them not wanna talk about what they’ve seen here!”

“With what information?” Korekiyo held onto his face with one hand, the other still holding onto the painting with Angie in it. “We don’t even know their name… unless you’re suggesting a more violent method?”

“Oh?” Tenko perked up, her tails flaring out behind her. “I can do that!”

“Hmm? No, no, that won’t do!” Angie shook her head, a smile still displayed on her face. “The human has done nothing worthy of punishment! That’s what Atua says!”

“Gonta knows friends are scared, but…” Gonta hesitated. “...Gonta cannot allow new friend to get hurt either!”

Kaede nodded, a worried frown on her face. “Yeah, that’s insane!”

The air was quickly filled with more and more voices as everyone joined the discussion to try and come to a decision on what to do; a majority of them vetoed any idea of violence, but also didn’t agree with the suggestion of keeping you here. It eventually got to a point where the same ideas were starting to be recycled, just with different phrasing each time they came up.

“Hey, I might have an idea.”

The sight of a webbed hand in the air quickly gathered everyone’s attention, their voices quieting down as they all turned to look at Rantaro; a serious expression was on his face as he crossed his arms, the air now completely silent as everyone stared at him.

“What’s…” Kaede paused, uncertainty written all over her face. “...what’s your idea, Rantaro?”

“Well, we erased the footage, right? So… how about we erase their memory too? Making them forget everything will solve both our problems.”

It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, though your shuffling as you perked up at Rantaro’s words went unnoticed as everyone continued to stare at him; the first thing to break the group’s silence was the clap of Kaede’s hands as she clasped them together, a smile now on her face.

“That’s a great idea! It’s perfect!”

“Well, shit. That’s so simple!” The demon looked annoyed, averting her eyes from everyone else. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Don’t worry, Miu-” Kokichi had a wide grin on his face. “-we don’t expect much from you anyways!”

Korekiyo shifted the painting in his arms. “Interesting… how will we be performing this feat?”

“Obviously Himiko can do it!” Tenko exclaimed, a smug expression on her face as her tails happily swayed behind her, “She can do anything!”

“Nyeh..” Himiko lacked the enthusiasm Tenko had, her gaze lazily cast downwards as she frowned. “I don’t know… I’ve never done anything like that before…”

Angie held a paintbrush up to her chin. “I could ask Atua to do it, but he’s actually pretty busy right now.”

“Kokichi.”

The smiling boy looked over at the vampire who had said his name.

“Yes…?”

“You should be able to do that, right? Make them forget?”

Kokichi let out a long hum, continuing to smile all the while. “Maybe… but why should I? That’s the most boring thing we could do.”

His smile just grew as almost everyone started complaining — all of which was directed at him, of course; irritated mentions of his name were thrown around within the mumbling and grumbling and arguing that you couldn’t otherwise make out the words of, though you did hear a “fucking shota prick” somewhere in the mix of angry comments.

“Well…” Kokichi dragged the word out. “...since you’re all asking sooo nicely…”

You jolted when his gaze landed on you, and immediately glared at him as he started walking towards you.

“Absolutely not!” You thrashed around in your silky strait-jacket. “You can’t do this! What’ll I tell my subscribers?!”

Kokichi tilted his head. “Subscribers?”

“Uh, yeah! My subscribers! Followers! Whatever you want to call them!” You kicked your legs, causing Kirumi to hold you a little further away from herself. “I can’t let you disappoint a thousand people by erasing my memory! I refuse! I’m supposed to bring them the latest and best in ghost news!”

“A thousand followers…” Kokichi mumbled to himself, before a cheeky smile appeared on his face as he let out a laugh, “How cute! Come back and talk to me when you’ve got ten thousand!”

“No, no, no!” You tried to lean away from him as he got closer. “You can’t do this!”

“Mmm… yes, I can-” He leaned in closer, raising up a hand. “-and I will!”

He poked your nose with his finger.

“Boop!”

- - - - -

You let out a small groan as you placed a hand on your head, your eyes cracking open slowly as you squinted at the bright daylight that dared to burn your retinas. “...wait, daylight?”

The sight of a bright blue sky was above you, a few white clouds sailing by on the breeze, and you stared at it for a moment before pushing yourself up into a sitting position — your gaze was immediately shifted to allow you to see that you were, indeed, outside. You were currently sitting on a patch of soft grass and dirt, a massive fence just a few meters away from you.

You looked down at yourself, cringing slightly at the dirt stains on your clothing and skin; they almost made it look like you had been tossed onto the ground from the way they were smeared.

That became more of an actual possibility when you noticed how achy your entire body was.

You just shook yourself fully awake and checked the backpack that was next to you — your camera’s battery was low, you were missing a flashlight, and you had a water bottle full of empty granola bar wrappers. “That’s weird… I packed all of this for my trip just yesterday…”

You paused.

“Wait… what day is it?”

You whipped out your phone, your gaze immediately locking onto the date that was displayed on the lock screen: it was the next day — as in, the next day after the day you planned to take your next trip. You blinked, before twisting around to look at the massive fence next to you.

The property beyond the fence was out of your sight from where you were sitting, but you already knew exactly what it was  — the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles. 

You had researched the place so thoroughly that you could probably pass a test on its history and prominence in society; not that it had much, but still. There wasn’t anything about ghostly activity occurring there in your research, unfortunately, but you concluded that was just because hardly anybody had set foot in there since its closure all those years ago. That had just made it all the more appealing to you, the fact that not many had dared to explore inside its walls.

But you dared to.

You were going to be one of the few to venture inside and- you were going to- going to?

But… didn’t you already go inside?

You winced, a sharp gasp escaping your lips as your hands grabbed at your head; a sudden pain struck your brain, making you fall over as your thoughts stopped in their tracks.

Images of a place you didn’t recognize flooded into your head: overgrown plants growing through cracked floor tiles, hot-pink polka-dotted stairs, an endless hallway straight-out of a horror movie, stain-glass windows that seemed like they belonged in a church…

…and a group of blurry figures standing around you, their voices muffled and echoing in the back of your head as you realized that you knew who they were.

The pain stopped as you gasped again, this time being a surprised gasp; a happy gasp.

Your hands slowly moved away from your head as you smiled and sat back up, the wetness on your cheeks ignored as you let out a small giggle. You soon got back on your feet, and turned to face the massive fence a few meters away from you before you hummed, turning away from it.

You grabbed your backpack, throwing your arms through the straps as you began walking away, home being your next destination.

Your footage may have been deleted, and you may have been thrown out…

…but there was always next time.

[fanfictwins]

Request Rules

Request Status: Closed.

Character X Reader or Reader Insert only.

Headcanons and Oneshots.

Please specify the gender of the reader (male, female, gender-neutral). If not specified, the reader will be written as gender-neutral.

Please include a short plot summary for oneshots (ex. "the reader and (character) go on a picnic date".). While not entirely necessary, the more detail = the better your request can be written.

Please avoid sending multiple requests in a single ask, especially if the requests are for different fandoms. If you have multiple requests, you can send them separately.

Please make sure that what you're requesting hasn't already been requested and written before.

Will Write:

Fluff

Angst

Romantic AND Platonic Relationships

Suggestive

Yandere

Alternative Universes (AUs)

Will NOT Write:

Smut/Lemon/NSFW

Abusive Relationships

Suicide or Self-Harm

Anything promoting racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, or any other form of bigotry.

Rules are subject to change.

Failure to comply with the current rules means your request will simply not be written. The mods reserve the right to deny a request for any reason, although it's not likely to happen as long as it follows the rules.

[fanfictwins]

Obligatory Introduction Post

Welcome to The Fanfiction Twins, a blog where twins... write fanfiction. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Meet the two mods of this blog:

Mod Daisy - the main writer of the two. Makes the writing look pretty.

Mod Peach - the main artist of the two. Makes the blog look pretty.

The two of them like writing for various fandoms. Current fandoms include:

Danganronpa

Genshin Impact

And more!

Request Status: Closed. Request Rules: Click here.