AKEMI AND OTHERS
Bou-san, Naru and Mai took a look around once they all got inside the room they would soon place their equipment temporarily for the case; It held the perfect space for the equipment that Naru and the others thought would help them, they were a few vacant chairs and tables that could handle the monitors for the future cameras.
With a clap of his hands, the Monk turns to the Boss in the room. "Okay! So this will be our base for the research. What do we do first?"
Akemi speaks up from the side, having her and Mai arrange the tables and chairs to give off more space for the equipment coming in tomorrow. Fixing her top after having to bend, "Well, we need to interview students involved with each incident..." knowing just how many there are already made her sigh— sympathy for those students and for the SPR with the loaded work.
"Mai, would you go find them now?" Naru's quick to order— leaving the person called frozen and gaping wide in disbelief, 'HOW CAN I DO THAT?! I don't even know my way around yet!' the sudden disbelief left the high schooler with no words to say,
"Ah! I can do it for you, if you'd like?" Yasuhara chimes in during the same moment that Akemi was about to suggest herself to go along with Mai, a hand lifted up to present his volunteerism personality, Yasuhara shows his willingness to give any sort of help in any way he could.
Naru though of it for a while, giving the pros and cons yet knowing Yasuhara as the President of the student council is already a big help. Having him work for them would be a lot easier. And it seems despite his busy schedule he wants to help the SPR, well Naru wasn't one to decline when one wants to help.
"...That would be faster, thank you." Naru took the folder Akemi seemed to hand him, the papers where he would fill the notes for the case already inside. He took a glimpse on the table and so a few more papers— letting him know there will be a lot coming in.
If seeing the workload a loss of strength and energy for others (e.g Mai)— Naru sees it as a gain of experience and knowledge.
That is one of the things Akemi likes about him. With a smile of her own the heiress continues her work.
Already considering their plans, mostly everyone ignored the other presence in the room yet alert of everything he does. Matsuyama-sensei plops himself down on a vacant seat that Akemi and Mai haven't touched, a face of arrogance and annoyance planted on his skin. "Please hurry up, I'm very busy!"
"Teacher, please feel free to leave." Akemi bit the bottom of her lip with her back turned away from them, finally hearing Naru's voice speaking back towards the teacher— albeit with less contempt. The Monk and Mai pausing to whatever it is they were doing to watch the Teacher and the Boss interact.
"I can't do that. It's my job to watch students' behavior." Mai's lips twitched, her anger being unconcealed. 'Watching their behavior— who does he think he is?!'
Where Mai appear to start showing her emotions, Naru remained professional. He directly states, "As long as we're involved with this case, students are also our clients. It's our policy to protect our clients' privacy." while Akemi remained with her back against them 'fixing' something with a hidden cheer towards Naru's victory; Bou-san instead showed that cheer quite clear in his face as he watched the interaction.
"It's not necessary for kids to have privacy!" The Gym teacher barks, snapping his eyes towards Naru who kept his calm demeanor.
Akemi clenched her teeth under her smile. Naru got accustomed to this— being in his line of work, he was bound to meet stubborn people and even prideful ones. Not much improvement to that and surely he could handle this.
"No matter how old they are," Naru deliberately slows down his enunciation for further emphasize. "-clients are clients. Please leave."
Matsuyama-sensei instead of understanding what Naru has spoken, thought of it as an opportunity to catch whatever deviance he thought of. "Will you be doing something you'd rather I didn't see? Since they're the ones who hired psychics to come to our school, I want to hear what they have to say."
Naru lost no momentum at this moment. Quick to strike. "-Then you should go to the principal's office."
Bang.
Akemi tilts her head, a civil smile on her lips when she finally turns towards them. "The Principal was the one who hired us, Matsuyama-san." Fully reloading the gun,
Bou-san bangs a laughs, "That's right. Good one! It was your principal who hired us! Ahahaha!"
The teacher blushes red, standing quick and stomping towards the door. With a hateful glare, the teacher turns to them. "Fine then! If anything happens, I'll blame it on the Principal!"
And the door closed with a SLAM—!
"You're an idiot, baldy!" Mai yells, pointing at the closed door where Matsuyama-sensei left. Letting out her own hidden anger. "-Instead of worrying about your student's behavior you should worry about your own behavior first!" Placing her hands on the side of her hips, Mai let out a gloating laugh. "This is what they call 'The loud barking of a defeated dog!' Ahahaha!"
Akemi felt a bead of sweat fall down her forehead, Bou-san became the kind one and leaned closer to Mai. "It's 'howling' not loud barking— You're embarrassing us here, Mai." The monk teased.
"...." Mai's whole stupor broke down. Her cheeks flushed, from her mistake. "Oh..."
Seeing their interactions, Yasuhara could not help but laugh. "Taniyama-san sure is funny."
Bou-san pouts towards Naru, already seeing Akemi placing her tea utensils somewhere in the corner from a bag the monk did not know where it came from. "Although I was really looking forward to hearing Naru-chan's comments..."
"I don't have time for jerks. It's pointless trying to preach to a swine." Bou-san sucked in his lips when Naru moved on to speak to Yasuhara. "Let's see... Yasuhara-san, as soon as class is over please have students come here—"
SHATTER—!
Naru and the others turn to see Akemi rigid, one of her tea saucers shattering from the sudden let go.
"Akemi-sem—pai?!!" They were stunned when Akemi quickly turns— running towards the door, with her words following her leave.
"Something's outside!"
"KyAAAAHHHH!" Yasuhara, Bou-san and Mai froze. They were quick to react from the shout outside— Naru already ahead of them when he followed Akemi after.
~~~
AKEMI
"What happened?!" Bou-san kneeled by the two girls— one supporting her friend and the other clutching her calf in pain. "What's the matter?" he asks again as the girls continue to cried.
Akemi being the one who answered his question, "The... dog..." Akemi first spoke, gaining their attention. The heiress kept her eyes on the opened doors, watching where the snarling dog stood.
"It's that dog..."
In the middle of the messy classroom, a black dog stood with muscles huge and ripped like a bulldog's. The dog continued to snarl, revealing its sharp teeth that could beat a shark's; tongue rabid with the corner of its mouth filled with foam. The tail of the dog cut off short resembling a doberman's short tail and its nails sharp like talons like a wild beast.
It is a wild beast at this point,
On Akemi's point of view, thick black mists circled the dog, solidifying it's presence in the room. It's beady eyes almost red with blood, yet she couldn't help but notice how the aura around the dog looked off. It's mist moved oily or maybe clay.
The dog on cue, growled. Sensing Akemi, and glowered at the sight of her spiritual mana. Bou-san flinched at the darkness of the dog's bared teeth and pulled Akemi to the side with him as it ran for them. "Naru get back into the hall!" Bou-san yells as the monk pulled Akemi closer to him, yet the dog kept running and leaps up into the hall, disappearing from the sight of others.
Mai felt her fingers shake, her voice stuttering the same. "It... it disappeared..." she mutters out as they all gaped at the empty halls of the school. But Akemi knew better— with unsmiling lips, Akemi followed the dog with her gaze. It's dark eyes glaring at her before it ran away.
With a sigh, knowing no danger is present— Akemi lifts her gaze and internally frowned at the hundreds of wisps flying around. They have been the cause of why she lagged behind earlier, the wisps were too many and covered her sight. The sight of them would have been quite majestic if Akemi didn't know what those orbs meant. 'Something is off... why are they wisps instead of orbs?'
Akemi felt a chill crawl up her arm. She has never seen it these many before and like the dog, most of the wisps around looked like oiled flames which Akemi is sure she has seen somewhere else. She smelled smoke the moment he stepped inside the school and saw the wisps flying around, it was quite strong meaning the spirits are highly active and near yet somehow this acted different— it smelled more as an incense with a tinge of human sweat.
'Could these be...?' Feeling a gaze, Akemi turns her head and caught the view of the opposite school building— the building presented itself a blur yet a man— no, student clearly stood on the top. His shoulders shaking and Akemi could lightly hear his laughter from that distance. 'Is that a student?'
The SPR crew walked back to their temporary headquarters, with Akemi slightly walking ahead with a determined stance. The laughter still tickling her ears, 'Why is he laughing?'
Opening the door to the room, Akemi waltz in without a word nor a look back to the others. Bou-san and Mai saw nothing wrong with it, and followed Akemi inside. The two still bothered from what happened just minutes ago, and so kept to themselves for a while. They just thought Akemi was the same.
Seeing the broken pieces of the saucer, Mai knelt down and started picking them up. 'Akemi-sempai or someone else might step on these...'
While Mai picked up the shards of ceramics, Akemi pulled in a small trash can for quick disposal. "The dog..." Akemi started, gaining the other's attention. Naru and Bou-san stood with each other, talking about the events while the girls cleaned up. They turned their attention towards Akemi when she spoke, all this time waiting for her to share.
"What did you see, Akemi?" Bou-san asks, when Akemi and Mai finally got rid of the mess.
The heiress takes a breath, pulling out a chair for her to elegantly sit on, thinking of how to tell her side of view. "I saw the dog that is for sure but what confused me was the aura around it— I cannot explain it easily but the aura around it was a dark thick mist yet it looked oily or clay-like..."
"Oily?" Bou-san repeats, confused.
The heiress nods. "Imagine a flame yet has the appearance and texture of a flowing sticky liquid,"
The others hummed, not quite getting it but still getting the gist of Akemi's thoughts. "Have you seen anything like it before?"
Akemi turns to Naru when he asked, "It seems familiar... I cannot place it quite yet— but maybe I have seen them in Temples."
Naru slightly tilts his head, cocking just a bit. "Temples?"
Akemi nods, "I often seen auras similar to this case on shrines and temples when people call on their gods..."
Naru hums, lifting a hand to his chin as he thought of Akemi's words.
Sunset came when the students were free to come by. There were at least a few dozens of groups but most of the stories they got out of was when a group of girls visited the temporary headquarters. One of the students spoke about the Language Laboratory. She was reviewing a tape she recorded during a lesson when the past couple hours of her day remained normal, this particular event traumatized her and her friends. Throughout the recording during the particular lesson, all she heard was static and a strange voice playing back. The voice resembling a child's. The student said to have felt a strange sensation on her legs and feet as though someone were down her table. So gathering all her courage and peeking under, the girl saw a child glaring at her with a grin.
Mai shivers at the story, just imagining the events in her head. 'Yikes...'
"Did anybody else experience this?" Naru ask, his eyes fully focused on the clients with his face neutral. Yet shows that he is fully taking in their stories.
The girls in the room nodded and each claimed they experienced such haunting— Bou-san behind Naru took notes diligently. Wanting to have a copy of his own since most of Naru's notes were a whole different language that made the monk's nose bleed.
The group of girls then started citing each hauntings they heard of around the school.
Bou-san's hand almost started to cramp at the list; A locker that would never open. An anatomy model that breaks apart by itself. Strange noises in the music room. An old man popping his head out the incinerator with his head upside down and someone lying down on the second bed from the back of the Nurse's Office.
Mai once again shivers on the last two mentioned, 'Just imagining it... how did they cope?'
"...And someone said they've seen Sakauchi-kun..." The SPR crew present paused, Akemi and Naru straightening themselves at the mention of the name. "-that they passed him in the hallway or that he was standing in classrooms."
"Sakauchi?" Akemi leans forward, while Naru leans back on his chair. 'Could it be the boy she saw?'
"Sakauchi? Who's that?"
"He was a freshman that committed suicide last September... Strange things started happening at our school right around last fall— No actually, ever since Sakauchi-kun committed suicide." The girl starts. "-I was wondering if these incidents had anything to do with that..."
With a hum, Naru tips the point of his pen on the papers placed on the table. "Then that's why it says here that you guys tried to get rid of the spirits on your own."
the girls weakly nodded, "That's right, but we're not totally convinced that this stuff is happening because of Sakuchi-kun's curse. We just couldn't stand not doing anything about it... but we didn't know what we could do to fix it."
"Did you personally know him?"
"No, I didn't. I'd never even heard of him until after his death. But his death note became well known at one point."
"A death note?"
"Yes," The student gestures. "It said 'I'm not a dog.'"
Akemi froze.
"Do you know what he meant by that?" With Naru's question the girls looked at each other for answers but only one girl was strong enough to admit. "I think so, because even I feel that way sometimes when I'm at school."
~~~
MAI
'At school? What does she mean by that?' Mai frowns, when the girls left the room to go back home. The silence in the temporary classroom evident while they process the information they got.
"I could understand that," Bou-san was the first to speak up.
"Huh? how?" Akemi and Bou-san could not stop a bead of sweat to fall on their heads as Mai turned to blink at them with genuine cluelessness.
"You... you're a female high school student, you should have noticed." Hearing the words being directed at her, Mai avoids her gaze with a sheepish smile but deep inside the girl was pouting, as she was genuinely confused.
"The school is pretty strict, isn't it?" Akemi speaks, giving a small smile in hopes to let Mai understand where she was going to. "The school decides the length of their hair, what color their belongings should be, constantly being disciplined on how they talk and told to behave— it's like they are being trained and stop being their own person."
Bou-san nods, snapping his fingers towards Akemi. "Surprisingly enough, everyone seems to be following the rules. Not a single student has their hair dyed, you know?"
Hearing their explanation, Mai hums in thought. Fully understanding, "I see, this isn't like going school in the old days..."
"Just how old do you think I am?" Bou-san deadpanned.
Akemi chuckles at the comeback yet continued her stride. "Mai when we're in school it takes up most of our time. So when you're oppressed that much I imagine it's very stressful for the students..."
"It would even make perfect sense if this group were hysteria rather than a psychic phenomenon." Bou-san huffs, while Akemi kept to herself with her usual smile and Mai clicked her tongue,
"Uhh... this is complicated...."
KNOCK KNOCK!
Yasuhara opens the door, peaking his head in. "The next group of students is here. They experienced food poisoning."
"Okay feel free to come in," Naru says but the SPR group paused when Yasuhara sat among the students that came in. Their brows raised in surprise. "Are you one of the victims as well?"
When Yasuhara motions a light curtsy, Naru began and took another piece of paper for him to note. "Alright then, can you tell me what happened?"
Yasuhara exchanged glances with his other classmates— Yasuhara took that as a lead for him to tell when almost all of them looked for him to help. "I had been thinking all morning about it... the air in the classroom— It stinks like garbage or something. The teachers didn't seem to smell it but the students in the class did. At that time, it smelled terrible in class— I guess at first the air just felt stale but then it rapidly worsen to the point where it started to smell really bad... Almost half of the students got sick when it happened."
"I see..." Even Akemi's lips twitched just a bit. 'Naru's going to check that one, isn't he?' Akemi thought to herself, but straightened when she realized something.
"There was a part in the newspaper, Yasuhara-san..." Akemi spoke, gaining the attention of Yasuhara and his classmates. The heiress was mindful in keeping the cap to cover her face, "It said something about the students getting sick because of some gas from the heating system...?"
Yasuhara's eyes widened in realization, leaning forward just a bit. "The heating system at school operates with steam instead of gas and the sentence went different from food poisoning..."
Mai also getting the idea, gapes at the information. "So then the newspaper article was a lie?!"
"I think it was an excuse the school made up to cover themselves..." Yasuhara answers back with a sheepish smile towards Mai, while his classmates remained focused on Akemi.
"Do you still smell it?" Naru asks, noticing Akemi holding a pen.
"Yes, it's been around for so long I guess we've gotten used to it but when students visit from another class they always ask us about it—" Yasuhara paused, as though he himself is still troubled about it. "-The only thing is sometimes the smell becomes extremely strong."
"The smell, huh..." Naru mutters under his breath, eyes gazing and focused on the papers. "Yasuhara-san, when was the first time you realized something was unusual at school?"
The question didn't took too long for Yasuhara to answer, but a hand to the chin helped him somewhat. "I guess the first time I realized it was when students refused to come... But before that... When fires started breaking out at school?"
One of his classmates perked, a male with a shaved head. "You must be talking about the small fires in the dressing room," When the SPR crew turned their attention to him, he continued. "At first we thought someone was purposely starting them. It happened exactly every 12 days— so we figured somebody was doing it as a prank."
Akemi blinked, stopping her scribbles on blank pieces of paper. 'Every 12 days?'
"Every 12 days, huh?" Akemi bit her lip thinking she spoke for a second— soon after realizing it was Naru that spoke out loud made her continue signing the papers in front of her. '4...5...6...'
"Yes, it started happening in the middle of October! The first time it happened and again 12 days later so several teachers took turns keeping a watch on the room but..."
"A third fire 12 days later?" Naru forwards with meaning.
Yasuhara nods, "Yes, at that point they decided that no one could use the dressing room and they locked it up."
Akemi this time chimes in, fully caught in the story. "But another fire 12 days later?"
Yasuhara's classmates blushed from her voice alone. "That's— that's right..." They nodded, yet Yasuhara was the one that continued explaining. " Right around that time, some of the students stop coming to school in the thought of maybe someone who setting the fire is dangerous."
"Does the fire still continue to be set today?"
Yasuhara hums, "Exactly 12 days apart and it happens early in the morning— the next should happen in a couple of days."
'It seems this case may be more complicated than anticipated. Naru please don't make that serious face...' Mai peeks at Naru, blushing at seeing how handsomely serious he was at this case.
"May I inspect the classroom now?" Naru asks as he pulled down his clothes and stood up, Akemi following with.
"I think he meant 'We' right, Boss?" Akemi smiles at him and Naru didn't bother to answer. Not contradicting her answer nor agreeing.
Which ignited the other students to stand along with her, "Ah, sure."