A DIY exorcism on a Tuesday afternoon - that's what Shiori and Rocky find themselves planning outside that fucked-up bathroom. He's not sure if he's hushing his voice so that teachers don't catch him skipping, or so that whatever the hell the thing in there is doesn't catch the both of them plotting its downfall, but they end up whispering all the way up the hall ‘til they're standing right beside the door.

  “Sorry,” Shiori apologises again, for the nth time, “I dragged you into this, but I don't even know the first thing about getting rid of…whatever it is.”

  “Seriously, s'fine. We don't needa be experts.” Rocky's not as convinced as he makes himself sound, and if Shiori repeating herself is anything to go by, she's not buying it any more than he is - but, hey, at least she doesn't call attention to his clueless bravado. “It's all in the mind, anyway, right? Intention, or whatever.” No matter how lost he is, Shiori somehow manages to look even more confused, mustering up little more than a shrug of her shoulders.

  “I guess so…? I-...I wouldn't know.”

  “What, no Handbook for the Recently Deceased?”

  She laughs a little bit, shaking her head. “No, just a whole lot of…nothing.” Sighing without breathing, she finds herself staring at that accursed bathroom door, nibbling on her lip. “Better than that, but…”

  “Hey, hey. Deep breaths,” a heavy hand lands on her shoulder - surreal as it is to touch a ghost, gently squeezing something that's both there and not - until Rocky thinks better of it a moment later. He scratches at the back of his neck instead, and turns to follow her eyes. “If some random chicks from back in the day can do it, then we're gonna be just fine.”

  “Do you know how to do it, though?”

  She raises an eyebrow, hands pressed in front of her chest in that nervous habit he's getting used to seeing. Rocky makes a symbol with his hand, and - maybe he exaggerates it to get a laugh out of her, but the spirit is there - mimics what he saw some Buddhist monks do in a drama one time. He makes a 'sword,’ putting two fingers up, and a thumb over the rest: “you know the Nine Cuts, right?”

  “Oh- oh, that's right! We can just do that!”

  Nothing boosts your confidence like a conspiratorial grin. His sword turns into a fist, offered to Shiori; with a soft, little smile, she knocks her knuckles against his. She centres herself with another deep breath, and he nods with all the readiness he'll ever have. Rocky starts making for the lion's den.

  “Let's go, Inoue.”

  Silence.

  “...Inoue?”

  Looking back makes him feel like fucking Odysseus; there she is, right behind him, wrapped up in hands grabbing at her wrists, her neck- one’s squeezing her mouth closed so tightly that it’s going to break her jaw. They're coming from inside, from the bathroom- Rocky grabs at the closest one, but it's just too fast for him. That mass of grabbing, gangling limbs musters a low voice, chuckling as it drags Shiori right past him, brazen.

  “Mu…ne…za…wa… You'll learn… You'll…learn…”

  “Get the fuck back here!” - Rocky looses a war cry, flinging the bathroom door unsealed and charging in.

  Frankly, the opportunity staring him down right now (or is it more like glaring?) is too good to miss, even if it does come with a black mark on the Newspaper Club's perfectly-polished coffee table. Homura watches Munezawa's expression carefully; she's weighing him up, he can tell. It feels like staring into the eyes of a lion: keeping eye-contact is the trick to it, little other than a polite smile on his well-trained poker-face. Eventually, Munezawa groans out loud, and even if she's rolling her eyes, she's the one who looks away first.

  “Fine, fine,” she sighs, kicking her boot back to the floor and stuffing her hands into the pockets of her oversized hoodie. You could almost mistake her for a rebel full of confidence in the way she throws it over the top of her uniform, but its drooping shape, hanging from her shoulders like a wet blanket, tell a very different story. Shifting her weight from one leg to the other, her impatience is as obvious as a neon sign. She might as well be herding him out the door - so, he takes the hint.

  “Fuck are you going?”

  “I thought you wanted to know what I discussed with Tanaka. The one from your class? Was that not right?”

  Annoyed, Munezawa puts her back to the door, physically blocking the way. “Yeah, I did. So, tell me, or-”

  “It's easier to show you,” Homura smoothly cuts her off, “besides, don't forget - I have some questions for you, too.” He smiles, eyes closed, ear to ear with transparent manipulation. “Why don't we walk and talk? Two birds, one stone, no?’’

  Munezawa looks like she would argue if he'd left room for it - hence, he doesn't. She grumbles, but she relents, stepping aside and following him into the hallway.

  “I knew you'd co-operate,” Homura hums, nodding approvingly, “now, about your mother…”

  “Inoue! Inoue…?!”

  It's like something out of a cheesy horror movie. Every dumbass slasher protagonist he's ever yelled at has to be laughing at him right now, watching him make his way into the obvious trap of flickering lights and creepy mirror-faces. The bzzt, bzzt of the shorting ceiling-lamps don't do much to give him a good look at the area; the girls' bathrooms aren't much different from the boys' ones (probably because the latter got ‘renovated’ with a new sign on the door a few years ago, if he had to guess), but that knowledge doesn't do a lot to make the room feel any more familiar. White tiles don't seem so regular, stretching and warping out in front of him, and the mirror along the left wall doesn't help any to make the space feel…real.

  The focal point, though, is obvious: from the moment he walked in, Rocky's eyes have never flickered away from the stall at the very back of the room for long. The bright-blue door is still rattling on its hinges from being slammed shut just a second ago. Of course it's the fourth one, as if it could be any more cliché - he'd roll his eyes if he wasn't freaking out, but nothing kills the humour like the fact that each step is another point from which there is no return.

  “Inoue, answer me… Hey…” …He doesn't know why he's trying to pretend she's gonna be fine. Rocky grits his teeth, and reaches forward for the thin, silver handle.

  “Ah, another of those girls… I’ve seen you with her… Would you like a red cloak or a blue cloak?”

  He can't tell where the voice is coming from, disembodied and displaced, but that's not the problem, here. He stops, affronted. “D’you need your fucking eyes checked, dumbass?” he just about growls under his breath, but it's only punctuated with a pause - a pause that makes him remember where he is. Rokuro feels sweat pool up on his brow. He feels watched, in a way that isn't entirely physical - it makes his skin crawl, and then it goes deeper, a creeping sensation seeping into his body and past it.

  Inoue…

  Rocky slams his fist into the stall door, ramming his entire shoulder at it without a single care for whatever fines he'd get if he actually broke it down.

  “So violent…” The voice sounds like Shiori's, but infinitely worse - even more hollow and even more breathy, creeping and worming its way into the walls, the floors- into his own brain. “Your soul… Hm...no, it isn't… I must have been mistaken…”

  “That all you got to say for yourself?!” Rattling the handle, the door won't fucking open- he can hear Shiori struggling inside. “Come out here and fight me!”

  “I don't want you.” It's oddly snappy, and that just pisses him off more. He rams his body into the door again, futilely bashing his fists against it. “It's a shame, really… You'd be so perfect, if you were-… Ah, but maybe your friend will be. She's so wonderful, isn't she? Following her into the bathroom like that… You think so, too, don't you?”

  He's never been more disgusted. He's not listening, but it doesn't stop. He feels slimy, just listening to this thing pretend he shares any of its disgusting thoughts. He's staring at the blue and he’s just seeing red, screaming his throat raw before he realises what he's doing. “You fucking degenerate!” Rokuro shouts as loudly as he can, slamming his entire weight into a door that should have crumbled minutes ago, “let her go! She's not yours! You're a goddamn pervert, a freak, a-”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  All of a sudden, a fist collides with the back of his head, and a significantly less horrifying (but no less dangerous) voice rings in his ears along with the actual ringing, pinging from one ear to the other like a broken pair of headphones.

  “Who are you calling a pervert, pervert?!”

  “She died a few months ago,” Erimi snaps bluntly, “I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

  Right out of the gate, that's what he asks? Folding her arms tightly over her chest doesn't seem to give this prick the message that she's not going to talk about that. That smug underclassman just keeps smiling like he's two steps ahead, and it's starting to piss her off.

  …

  He's not going to say anything until she elaborates, is he?

  Yet another annoyed murmur falls from her lips, but, reluctantly, Erimi finds herself talking. “...Karin Munezawa. She was a badass. Went here. Strangled last year. Never knew my dad, so don't fucking ask.”

  “She graduated…1972, was it?”

  “Why are you even asking me any of this? You already did your fucking homework.”

  Just annoying Erimi even more, the Newspaper Club kid shakes his head, alternating between pressing his pointer and middle fingers together in a delicate, irritating little gesture. “There's something I specifically want to ask about that year in particular,” he clarifies, “an…incident, with the occult? As I heard it, she ended a series of assaults with some kind of ritual…?”

  Shoulders deflating, she stares at him for a second. “That story? Really?” - He nods, even if she's shaking her head. “...That's just some shit she made up to entertain my friends. It's a ghost story. It's not real.”

  “Humour me?” She could slap him, she swears, but…

  “...Some girls in her class got hurt, or died, or…something. Probably just some weirdo hiding in the bathrooms, I don't know. Maybe they scared ‘em off, but it wasn't for long, was it?” Erimi lets her hoodie cover over her body, pushing her shoulders forward and glaring at the ground. “…I've seen the photos. I saw her body. The same creep got her, I just fucking know.”

  Kodaka seems to go quiet at that, and Erimi's grateful for a moment of freedom from his frustrating little questions. They wander the halls in silence for several minutes; he hasn't told her where they're going, but as they get closer, she starts to get the idea. Since yesterday, this part of the school has been so much darker - the first-floor bathrooms where Manako nearly got killed loom overhead at the end of the corridor, and it's almost like she can imagine someone screaming.

  “Get the fuck back here!”

  …Erimi feels her breath quicken, her chest tighten, and her anger boil over. “That fucking creep- he's here?! Now?!” - Even Kodaka looks shocked, covering his mouth with one hand, but Erimi doesn't have time to wait for him to come to his senses. Gritting her teeth, she finds herself sprinting, all but ripping that door off its hinges and storming inside like a whirlwind of impulse decisions and red-hot rage.

  There he is: yelling like a maniac, trying to force open a stall door, a look on his face she can't even begin to describe. “You're a goddamn pervert,” he's shouting, “a freak, a-”

  She leaves Kodaka cowering in the door-frame, storms up to that bastard transfer student, and clobbers him with a solid right hook to the back of the head. “Who are you calling a pervert, pervert?!”

  The way he reacts, it's like he didn't even hear her ‘til now. He goes down like a sack of bricks, and a hand on the door he was just trying to break down is the only thing keeping him from a really nasty fall. Dizzy and staggering, Tanaka, turns, bewildered.

  Munezawa is shouting about something, but the ringing in his ears is a bit too loud to pay much attention. Nausea churns in his stomach, but maybe that wasn't from the punch - “Inoue,” he sputters, trying to scrounge for an explanation, only to get a slap to the face for his trouble.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” She screeches, gripping him by the collar of his red, sweat-soaked shirt. Pushed up against that fourth stall, Rocky’s mind reels and strains for an explanation.

  “She's in there,” is the best he’s got, “I need to-”

  “Need to what?! If you think I’m gonna let you strangle another girl half to death, you better think agai-”

  “No!” That much, he can come up with an answer for. The dizzy whirlwind in his head is slowly turning into a dull ache, and he's starting to regain the ability to think. With this newfound foresight, it dawns on him that trying to push her off of him would only worsen his case, so he settles for taking her wrists and attempting to pry himself out of her grip. “She’s- she's in danger. The strangler isn't me, you fucking moron, it's-”

  Munezawa slams her fist against the door behind him. Violently cutting him off, her voice lowers to a hiss; “don't fucking bullshit me,” she spits like an angry snake, “who the fuck is even in there?! Don't you dare bring her into this, do you hear m-”

  “Would you like a red cloak or a blue cloak?”

  Mid-word, Munezawa freezes, and the fabric falls from her grip. Rocky takes the opportunity to free himself, rubbing the back of his head and grumbling away the pain. The voice isn't content to wait for a reply this time, though - it's mumbling her name over and over, “Munezawa, Munezawa, Munezawa,” each one louder and louder. It should be deafening, but is the sound even coming from this plane of existence? - Munezawa seems to think so, whipping her head around in search of the omnipresent source.

  “Get- get out here!” She's shaking, and frankly, he can't blame her. The little sidekick she left waiting in the doorway is trembling in his boots, too - pointing at the mirror behind the other two, at least Kodaka can hold it together enough to draw their attention, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

  “Tanaka, that girl you were with-...”

  Both of them spin around so fast that Rocky almost gets dizzy all over again, but maybe that would have been preferable. Shiori, her image in the mirror, surrounded by those hands; the monster itself is a being of cloaks and disembodied parts, all lips and arms and too-long fingers that reach out like they're going to crush her. Can ghosts hurt ghosts? - It doesn't matter, does it? Inoue’s in pain, but the second Rocky goes for the mirror, the image flickers away and fades.

  “Munezawa,” the voice whispers again, “Munezawa, Munezawa…”

  The gyaru in question grits her teeth, neon-pink bangs matted with cold sweat. Fight is only winning over flight as long as she's rooted to the spot; it's hard to tell if her legs are shaking with fear or rage. “You need to go,” Rocky tries to tell her, but she’s not listening.

  “Would you like a red cloak or a blue cloak?”

  “If I answer, what then, huh? You gonna stop?”

  That ghostly visage appears in the mirror again, just for a moment - a flash of a tight-lipped smile. “Yes,” it hums, sickeningly sing-song, “you, and your mother…were all I wanted. This…will be the last.”

  “Then-”

  “Red cloak.”

  Munezawa jolts, but Rocky’s not looking at her. “You asked me before,” he keeps going, against his better judgement, “don’t think you can retract, can you? What's the problem? My soul was “girly” enough for you five minutes ago, right?” …Just saying that much has him gritting his teeth. This fucking thing really had to remind him, didn't it? …But, even if it hurts… Sucking in all his anger, his rage and his pain, Rokuro takes a step towards the mirror: “run, Munezawa,” he mutters, “it won't go back on its word. It can't.”

  The next few seconds happen in a blur. Not that he wasn't expecting it - your life’s meant to flash before your eyes at times like this, right? - but the thing’s crazed screeching heralds a blitz of chaos and fury. Something presses into his back, claw-like and sharp, tearing straight through his t-shirt - he hears Munezawa gasp, but it's not as painful as he thought it was gonna be. Kodaka yells something like “right in front of you!”, and Inoue’s holding him up all of a sudden, but Munezawa’s screaming and shouting is making it difficult to focus on the questions she's asking him. The pain stops - the pain stops, and he’s not dead? Platinum-blonde strands fall in front of his face, and the irritation of hair in his eyes confirms it. Brushing them aside, all of a sudden, he sees it: that cloaked mass, answering to Munezawa’s fist. She punches and punches, again and again; Inoue grabs his attention with a squeeze of his shoulder.

  Now, right?

  Inoue's hand on his wrist, suddenly, this fucking thing doesn't seem so intimidating. Something flows into him with her touch, bolsters itself, and breathes life and death into the ‘sword’ they create together: nine cuts - four down, five across - drawn into the air with a hand aglow. “Rest in peace,” Shiori calls out - no, he's saying it, too, isn't he? - and they inscribe it onto the cage, without thinking about it for a second.

  Munezawa's final punch lands on the glossy tiles of the bathroom floor. Panting, she looks up, eyes puffy with tears she can't hold back.

  “Is it over…?”

  Sure, class is still on, there's not much point in going to their last ones after that. Last period English can wait; what’s really important right now is to evacuate the area before all that screaming and yelling gets a teacher to come running, and go sit up on the rooftop until school comes to an end. They dragged the newspaper kid along, too - cross-legged, he’s scribbling his “hot new story” into a notebook, chipping in here and there while the rest of them talk. Munezawa seems to have thousands of questions for Shiori, which works out great for Rocky. Bunching up his shirt to press to the cut he's now got to deal with, he's content to sit there and let them catch up.

  “You’ve been here this whole time, huh?” Erimi lets out a long breath, leaning back on her hands. She's not looking at Shiori - “I still can't even see you,” - but it doesn't seem to matter to her ghostly friend. As long as she can hear her, that's what matters - Erimi jumps when a half-present hand touches her shoulder, but she finds herself smiling anyway, resting her own on top of those phantom fingers.

  “Guess I owe you an apology, too, Tanaka,” she calls out, finally. Looking up, the bleeding’s stopped enough for him to try and pin the fabric around his body like a bandage. “Sorry for, uh…thinking you were a criminal?”

  “Nah. Don't worry ‘bout it,” he shrugs his shoulders (and immediately loosens the makeshift dressing again, much to his chagrin), “I would’a been freaked out, too. Just as long as you know I’m not a violent perv, or whatever the fuck else.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re good,” she laughs out loud, shaking her head, “I got your number, now. You're just stupid.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He rolls his eyes, but he's laughing, too. If anyone looks relieved, though, it's Shiori - she’s been smiling since they got up here.

  “I knew you two would get along,” she hums, snickering, “you’re basically the same person.”

  “I am not that dumb.”

  “Coulda fooled me.”

  “Most things could fool you.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Covering her mouth, Shiori watches them bicker, giggling under her breath. Maybe tomorrow, when she comes to class, she'll be able to join in on the morning chit-chatter, too…

  - vollendet