Friday, April 10th, 11:56PM - Old School Building

Haruka jogged as fast as she could, trying to get there before midnight; her backpack, filled with as much survival gear she could think of, bounced up and down with each step she took.

She would have left earlier, really. But convincing her parents to let her go had taken longer than usual; she had to spin a lie about a sleepover, and she prayed that her parents wouldn't look through her bag.

Before long, though, she'd made it to their destination, and looked at her cellphone for the time. 11:56PM. Later than she would have liked, but there was still a bit time to spare, at least.

It was only when she looked up that she realized that it wasn't just her there. It wasn't just Suzume and Sho, either.

"Oh... wow. When did this turn into a party?" she asked in general, then she turned to Suzume and Sho. "Where's Toby?"

Friday, April 10th, 11:37PM - Ishikawa Residence

A tentative step. The tree next to the window of her room was still as sturdy as ever.

Mitsuki balanced on her windowsill, pale blue pajamas hanging loose in the night air, small backpack strapped to her back. In the moonlight she looked rather like an oversized bat.

She stepped again and this time her weight went with it. She moved onto the tree branch. Step after step after step fifteen feet above the ground. When she reached the trunk of the tree she clung to it. It only took a few more moments of clambering and finding well-worn footholds in the bark-

There was a crack as her foot slipped and her leg impacted heavily against the tree trunk. She did not slip all the way. She did not fall. But she clung to the tree trunk, eyes wide, until she was sure that no one in her house had stirred.

Mitsuki hurriedly navigated the rest of the tree and dropped down to the pavement.

She grinned despite herself. One mishap. And it hardly mattered. This never got old. No ropes. No ladders. No evidence that she had snuck out. It was the perfect crime and the tree was the perfect accomplice. She gave it a little pat before removing her baggy pajamas to reveal her actual clothes underneath. Then she stuffed the pajamas in her backpack. Began to head off.

Friday, April 10th, 11:56PM - Old School Building

The amount of people here made Yori's expectations for the evening seem more in-feasible. Had the rumors really been so intriguing that half a dozen people had to show up on the same night? To be honest, he didn't really pay much attention to gossip in the first place. No one had seemed that interested when they poked around earlier, though. He'd assumed they'd have the building to themselves.

Disappointing. But not a complete loss. If this many people were here, perhaps there was something more exciting about the building itself than he'd realized. As Kozue gave a weak greeting to the crowd, he placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Hello. Are we all exploring, then?" Introductions would come with time. For the moment, he only wanted to establish who was going inside.

Friday, April 10th, 11:56PM - Old School Building

In hindsight, it was probably a terrible idea to fall asleep against a tree. For one, Tsuki's neck was stiff as all hell. Second, a mosquito bit her left ankle. Third, finally, and most importantly, for the first moment she woke up, Tsuki completely forgot where she was. She sighed deeply when she was finished spinning her head around.

"What time is it?" Tsuki groaned.

Man, how irresponsible. Yayoi probably came and left already. She was probably annoyed, and rightfully so. Tsuki got up to her feet, smoothing out her trousers. That was when she heard a familiar voice not too far off. Still waking up herself, Tsuki wandered away from the tree towards the opening near the front. Oh, cool, it was Sho and... Suzume? Yeah, that was her name.

"Sho-Chaaan. Suzume." She said. "What are you - "

And others. She stopped grinning, stopped talking. Her hand reached for her tie reflexively. She also noticed that there were grass stains on her jacket. Lame. Tsuki yawned, shuffling from foot to foot. There were a lot of people. She recognized a few people from her year, Sho included, a third year dude and... a couple she had absolutely no clue about.

Well, this was awkward. One girl asked when did 'this' turn into a party. Tsuki cleared her throat.

"So, like, you guys having a party?" Tsuki asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Pretty crap place to have it, if you ask me."

Friday, April 10th, 11:37 PM - Akira's Place

Man, life sucked sometimes. Most of the time. Hell, all the time. Akira wasn't counting. That would be work. But it sure as hell felt like it. This was true in very general terms, but tonight there was one specific reason that things were terrible.

His iPear hadn't been on his desk after all. Akira had even double-checked the room number to make sure he was in the right place. It was a cheap, offbrand piece of crap, but it was his piece of crap, dammit. It was for this reason that Akira was sitting on the front porch of his house, moping and idly surfing the web on his phone. His family was still off working, because when the hell weren't they? He didn't have any homework to do. No friends to hang out with.

Indeed, Akira was in a mood to cling to the first interesting thing that happened. And what happened was very interesting, indeed. A mysterious figure crept out of the neighbor's window, using the tree to drop down to the ground. Impressive. He still couldn't quite see who it was. A vile burglar? An insidious bugler? Either way, Akira briefly considered retreating inside. The criminal might not want any witnesses around.

He was both relieved and disappointed to see that it was just Mitsuki. Less exciting than he had thought, but still interesting. "Hey, miss ninja." Akira said, lazily waving a hand at her as she passed him. "Whatcha up to? On some mysterious mission?"

Friday, April 10th, 11:56PM - Old School Building

Much to Shiori's irritation, the group of people gathered in front of the building didn't show any sign of leaving anytime soon. Why had so many people turned up for this, anyway? Scowling slightly, he slunk to the back of the group, obviously not wanting to interact with the others at all. Although he was tempted to go off on his own, he admitted to himself he was rather curious what they were up to. Maybe there was some sort of... mass expedition he was missing out on. Yes. That had to be it.

There weren't any other third years there either, much to his disappointment. Shiori looked the group over, but none of them seemed to catch his attention in particular. Only the girl who had been hiding in the bush seemed to stand out from the crowd. (Of course, he was still wondering why she was in that bush in the first place...) As he overheard some of the others chatting about 'exploring', he realized he was starting to regret this decision. It was much too late to turn back now, but he decided he really didn't like this group. They're not even third years, he thought scornfully.

"Idiots," Shiori said in an irritated tone of voice. Obviously, he hadn't intended to say this very loudly, but he found his voice accidentally slipping and ended up saying it louder. Much louder.

Aw. Fuck.

She did not say that out loud. It was not very fitting for her image as a quiet and proper girl - not that it mattered. Akira had seen her.

What the heck was Akira Watanabe doing out on his front porch at midnight?

It did not actually matter. She just had to amuse him long enough so that he would not decide to go rat on her to her parents.

"Yup!" Mitsuki said. Not as loudly as she usually would if he was actually one of her friends. But more enthusiastic than Akira was probably used to hearing. "What's your interest in it, neighbor-senpai?" She dragged out the "senpai" part to a frankly quite uncomfortable length, grinning the whole time. She had never been much for authority. Or hierarchies.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58PM - Old School Building



Waiting for the right time to appear, possibly right at the mark of mid night, Rika sighted, not really liking waiting in silence but it would be worth it... that said, more and more people were showing up, it reminded her of a birthday party... perhaps they weren't really going to do anything weird in the old building after all... perhaps she could just skip the whole surprise, try to climb the barrier, and go there herself...

"no, that's wrong, if I do that what would be the point, the rumor says the barrier will banish so I will wait for it even if it takes me all night... but..."

She looked down at her phone screen, seen the seconds ticking slowly and under that a photo of Sango grooping her affectionately and biting her ear... she smiled lightly, the noise from the rest of the guys seemly disappearing, leaving only the night breeze the noise of leafs shaking and her thoughts,

"Sango... should I had brought her along tonight?... I'm kind of scared..."

She thought to herself, turning off the screen of the phone as to not alert the others of her presence... right there she saw something black moving within the old building... perhaps just an old curtain in the breeze, but to her it sure looked like a person looking at them from the shadows... right there she felt something cold touch her from behind and with tears in her eyes she ran out, running towards the group and screaming,
"It's got me! Aawwwuuu aa... uh... "
Sobbing she bended to her knees frightened beyond belief... so un characteristic of Maki...
Right there she looked over her shoulder, a tiny silk worm moving about it, possibly falling from a tree... her hazy plan for a scare was ruined, the one that got the surprise was her and now they all knew she was there.

"uuugh... I thought I was going to die..."
She sighted cleaning her tears with her long red sleeve, picking up the tiny worm and allowing it to return to its home.
"uuuh uh..." She subbed getting her composure, asking the group her first direct question.
"aww? Shiori-kun, please heeelp~" she saw him knowing him from her class, still somewhat teary eyed she continued,

"What are all of you doing here at this time?... could it be... the rumors... are you guys going to hide the barricade? so you were behind the whole thing uh?..."

Ugh. The girl sounded way too cheerful. Akira could practically feel his arteries clogging when Mitsuki called him "neighbor-senpaaaai". Seriously, who the hell actually talked like that? From the look on her face, people who were well aware of how annoying they were being. It was good to have a worthy rival.

"Well, neighbor-kohai," Akira said, cheerfully imitating Mitsuki's tone. "It's only natural for me to be curious after watching the girl next door climb out of her window in the middle of the night." He narrowed his eyes, staring intently at her. "Hm. Is this the part where you make excuses to hide the fact that you're secretly a magical girl on her way to save the human race, or some part like that?"

Akira idly fiddled with the strings on his hoodie while he waited for her answer. A weaker man would not feel comfortable wearing a hoodie with bunny ears attached to the hood. Akira was not strong. However, he had the power of apathy on his side. Besides, he liked his bunny hoodie. It was hella rad.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58pm

Toby came walking up the street checking his phone for a split second, late but not too late, he thought. That was even if anyone showed up at all. He really had enough running and panting today so he took his time getting halfway across the town.Turning the corner eyes closed he stated "Hey everyone sorry about that ran into some bad luck on my wa-" he opened his eyes to see about half a classroom of people gathered "I don't think we invited this many people." He looked around and was sure something odd was up. First years, second years, and third years all gathered round

"Well looks like Sho won't have to look far for someone to trip" he muttered under his breath and started towards his original group. "Traffic lights weren't happy today, couldn't make it fast enough, sorry about that, but whats with the massive group?" Bad enough that all of the bad stuff was going to happen any minute now.

Mitsuki narrowed her eyes if only for an instant.

Nobody ever called anyone a kohai explicitly. It was rude. Just like her. And Akira did not look like he cared even a single bit.

Okay. Well played. But she kept up the cheeky smirk. If Akira thought she was going to give up that easy, just because he had two years and a couple inches up on her, he had another think coming. But she also needed to get him off her back. A little honesty. A little bit of truth that he would not care about either.

"Maybe," she said. Hitched her backpack up as casually as she could. Even turned a little to the side so that she could leave when she heard his response. "Or maybe I'm just going to school. Bet you'd be scared if you knew what kind of ghosts I was hunting tonight, bunny-senpai."

"Timid!?" Kozue wasn't timid, he was... not conversationally inclined. Yeah. And anyway, it looked like everyone here hadn't been expecting this many people either, so his reaction wasn't even that weird!

On top of that, almost all of the other students looked like underclassmen. Oh man. He and Yori had to step it up. They had to be Role Models, capital letters included. Kozue was so torn between sulking over being called timid and trying to straighten up so that the younger students could look up to him that he ended up just sort of convulsing and making a noise like the air being let out of a tire.

Yori seemed to have things under control, as far as anything involving a bunch of teenagers and a supposedly haunted building could be under control, so Kozue just slumped over the handlebars of his bike and pouted. At this point, he was just hoping to get through the "exploring" as quickly as possible and then maybe he could convince Yori to let him spend the night. Biking home in the dark alone after going through a creepy abandoned school wasn't very appealing.

Friday, April 10th, 11:56PM - Old School Building

Hm. Akira knew an opportunity when he saw one. While that was usually handy for steering entirely clear of them, tonight he felt otherwise. This was his chance to try and track down his missing music player. The more he put it off, the more likely it was that someone else would find it. That was simply not acceptable in the least. If he tagged along with Mitsuki, Akira could retrace his footsteps from when he walked to school that morning, and possibly recover the spirit of music.

Hands stuck in his pockets, Akira casually walked over by her side. "I'm a hard man to scare, y'know. Maybe I should come with you. The ghosts will take one look at me," he flipped up his hood, "And they'll probably die of laughter. Again." There Akira stood, the most stoic bunny in all of creation.

"All right!" Mitsuki said and took a step forward. "Toodles, then-"

Wait. Akira said he was coming. He was supposed to say "whatever" and go do his cool cat impression somewhere else.

"Ugh, but," she protested, her hands on her hips, "this is like going to the convenience store with my mom."

But the spark in her eyes returned sooner rather than later. If Akira was going to tag along she would make the best of it. It was better than getting caught by her parents. She had only sneaked out at night five or six times this year. No way she was stopping before she reached a dozen.

Rolled her eyes. An exaggerated sigh. "Oh, whatever. But you better be ready to keep up!"

She took off, her backpack bouncing on her back as she ran. Time: eleven forty-two. Destination: the old building. Estimated time to arrival: how about thirty seconds?

It took her a bit longer than that.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58PM - Old School Building

Evil, evil woman. Well, out of all possible reactions, that wasn't anywhere near the worst. Not even in the bottom half. Akira spent too much time thinking about various ways things could go to shit. "Never underestimate how fast a rabbit can hop." He called out after her, then followed her at a jog, trailing slightly behind. It wasn't worth the effort to try and beat her in a footrace, and by going at a slower pace he could at least keep an eye out for the lost ark.

Akira allowed himself a rare smile. It was kind of nice to get out of the house every once in a while. It could be fun to join Mitsuki on her little ghost hunt. And try to scare the dickens out of her, of course. That much was implied. Akira suspected that she'd do her best to do the same to him. Turnabout was fair play, it said in the manual. At least it would if Akira had ever cared enough to read it. Reading the manual was for losers and nerds, and Akira totally did not fit square under both categories.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58 PM - Spoooooooky Old School Building

Masato had never intended to end up at the old school building. He'd only gone outside because he was so bored inside that any alternative seemed better. Unfortunately there wasn't much to do around town so late at night so he'd just put his roller blades on and started skating around looking for something interesting. So in a way he'd gotten lucky. He heard the voices before he saw anyone, they were talking pretty loudly and since it was night after all it was easy to notice. Of course the girl that had gone rushing past him was also a bit of a giveaway that something was up.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58 PM - Old School Building

Because honestly who willingly went to school at this time of night unless there was something going on? When Akira also went jogging past it was confirmation that yes there was something going on. No offence to Akira but if something got him up and moving it must have been worthwhile. He turned and followed the two to the school building slowing to a stop just by them.

"Did you guys plan a party and not invite me? Is that was this is?" He said folding his arms and smiling.

Man, what a crazy turn of events. And here Haruka thought that it was just going to be the four of them. She chuckled slightly at Tsuki's mention of this being a terrible party. One of the third years (at least, she presumed he was a third year) had asked if they were all exploring.

Yep. They were. She didn't actu
11:57PM
ally say that though.

Haruka began to think about could have possibly happened to make so many people come to the old school building on this day and at this particular time. Ooh... maybe it was fate, and they were all the chosen heroes that were going to save the world because they had special powers or something. Strange, though; usually when that happened in anime it was like five or six peo
11:58PM
ple at the most, and not, like, nine...

She heard Toby as he made his way up the hill, and it seemed like he was as surprised to see as many people here as she was. I don't blame you, she thought.

And as if the world was having way too much fun with this scenario, another girl popped out of the bushes crying, two others made their way into the group (one of which Haruka recognized as the first-year from before), and one more guy trailed behind them. Serio
11:59PM
usly? Well. Now that they had a group of... she mentally did a head count... twelve people, things were going to get... interesting to say the least. That is, if the rumors were even true. She checked her phone again. There was less than a minute left on the clock, which meant that any second now, there were going to find out whether they'd all gathered here for nothi

Haruka shrieked as a sharp stabbing hit her temple, and a high-pitched droning noise assaulted her ears. She fell to her knees covering her ears, and she began to feel nauseous. She shivered, breathing heavily, as chills wracked her entire body. She felt like she was going to throw up. She blinked, tears leaking from her eyes, as her vision faded to black. She fell to the side as her consciousness slipped away.

And...

one
by
one...

The others followed in her wake.

Looked like they had a bogey on their tails. One that followed them all the way to the school.

"You're interrupting a romantic date," Mitsuki piped up. "You see, bunny-senpai and his hoodie are in-"

Midnight hit. Headache hit. Nausea hit. Everything hit all at once. She dropped like a sack of rocks.

12:00

See, Akira? This is what happens when you decide to put a modicum of effort in, for once. What a load of bullshit. He hadn't even been able to find his iPear. Before he could totally confirm Mitsuki's allegations of hoodie-loving, shit got real bad, real fast.

The strong-willed hero of the story likely would have been able to resist the pain through willpower alone, and stumble away from the school to get help. Akira, on the other hand, fell to the ground with a nice little thud.

Christ, he should have stayed home. Stupid ninjas.

Friday, April 10th, 11:58 PM - Old School Building

Shiori was both relieved and disappointed at the fact that nobody had seemed to notice him at the back of the group. Mostly relieved, really.

"Shiori-kun, please heeelp," he heard Rika say from beside him. Shiori stared blankly for a moment, realizing only a few seconds later she was talking to him. Oh. Right. Why was she making such a big fuss, anyway? He had never really talked to her in class, so he honestly had no idea why she was acting this way. She did seem like the dramatic type, though, judging by what he had just seen.

"You don't need help," he replied bluntly. While she did seem slightly less annoying (to him, anyway) than the others in the group, Shiori decided she still got on his nerves a little. While he ignored her for the most part, he did give her a questioning glance.

12:00 AM

The boredom was starting to get to him when he noticed one of the other students fall to the ground. He stared at her disapprovingly, wondering if she was another one of those drama queens. Shiori never had the time to finish continue his thought, as he soon felt a heavy crushing feeling on his back, followed by an overwhelming wave of nausea. Of course, he soon dropped to the ground hacking and coughing. Shiori's consciousness faded as he doubled over on the ground.