Once Kazuo had settled in, three more students arrived. The first was a girl with fiery red hair whose clothes look a bit disheveled. She took a seat next to him. The next person was a tall foreign boy - really tall - with strong features. The last to arrive was a young man who looked to be in a hurry. He seems pretty friendly, opting to say hello to the people he decided to seat near to which is Kazuo and the red-haired student. Before Kazuo could return the greeting however, the door opened again and in came two faculty members. There was a ditzy young woman wearing large glasses who was carrying a bunch of paperwork and the second was a man who looked extremely apathetic. The woman set her stack of papers down and turned to the students. "Good morning class, welcome to our special geography course. I'm Ms. Sasaki and this is Prof. Takano," Ms. Sasaki introduced while adjusting her glasses.
Prof. Takano groaned and took the teacher's seat before grabbing the file atop the stack of paperwork. "Alright, let's take roll, shall we?" Takano began reading off the list of name; he even managed to pronounce Gruffydd's name perfectly. He then stopped at the last name and looked at Kazuo. "You're the transfer student, I take it? Unlucky you, getting stuck in this class." Takano remarked but was quickly interrupted by Sasaki who gave a nervous laugh. "Prof. Takano is kidding!" She protested. "A-Anyways, why don't you introduce yourself to your fellow classmates?" Kazuo nodded and stood up from his chair. He then walked to the front of the class and introduced himself with a polite smile before sitting back down at his seat. "We're missing two people... A 'Dan Shinjo' and 'Arisu Ueshima'. Not that it matters," Takano murmured before tossing the roll sheet onto the desk.
"So it took a bit of effort on our part but we managed to make this class a reality. At least for this year anyways. Umm, so this class won't be the usual pen-and-pad learning but, rather, we'll be conducting field research as a class." Kazuo perked up a bit as he heard that. Something different finally. "This region of Japan is quite interesting. Various geographical phenomena occurs here. We're at the forefront of studying these mysteries of nature," Sasaki explained. "So let's not waste another second. Today we'll be making a trip to the forest just outside Nichibotsu. Don't worry about your other classes today. They've been informed of what we're doing. We'll return to Koden at 3 PM."
Takano stood up and headed to the exit. "Huh? Where are you going, Prof.?" Sasaki asked. "You take care of things today. I'm going to take a nap. This hangover's killing me-"
"Oh Prof. Takano, you kidder! Umm, but what about the equipment?"
"You know how to use them. 'Sides, now you got people to carry them. I'll be expecting some documents on my desk tomorrow." Takano then left without another word.
Sasaki looked to the students with a nervous smile. "O-Okay, let go shall we?"
-Noon-
They had arrived at Nichibotsu forest a while ago and were now wandering aimlessly through the woods. Does Sasaki know where she's leading the class? So far, the students' "assignment" has been carrying large, heavy briefcases containing "equipment", whatever that entails. Kazuo couldn't really complain. At least he isn't stuck in a classroom taking notes. Sasaki suddenly stopped when she noticed something in the near distance. Without speaking, she hurried over to it, almost tripping on the way. Kazuo calmly walks over to her position. "Class! Look at this! This is one of the strange geographical phenomena I was talking about!" Sasaki is way too excited talking about a hole in the ground. Given it is a rather large hole but, more strangely, it's perfectly circular and it, looking inside, it has no bottom - only darkness. Sasaki's eyes lit up as she just kneeled there admiring the hole in the ground.
Kazuo looked to the others and set the equipment down. As the other students talked amongst themselves, Kazuo just stood there, aloof to the entire situation. Sasaki was taking notes about the hole but wasn't really interested in doing any teaching. Then, she noticed something creeping up the hole. "Huh...?" In an instant, an elongated black arm shot up out of the hole and grabbed Sasaki, attempting to pull her in. Kazuo was the first to notice and quickly grabbed Sasaki, wrapping his arms around her body. He struggled hard to pull her away from the hole but the arm is incredibly strong. Kazuo called to the others to help and, soon, they were all helping to pull their teacher back. Unfortunately, even with all their strength combined, it proved meaningless and all of them were pulled into the hole.
Sometime later, Kazuo woke only to find himself and the others no longer in Nichibotsu forest but... Nichibotsu's Lower Downtown district? Well, an extremely distorted, ruined version anyways. Standing up off the ground just as the others are beginning to awaken, Kazuo looked up above him and noticed a sky split evenly in black and white. Kazuo then looked to the others and asked if anyone sustained any serious injuries as a result of the fall. There were a lot of different reactions amongst the group but mostly confusion. Sasaki was also nowhere to be found. Once the group managed to regain what little composure they could muster, Kazuo alerted them to a terrifying sight. In the far distance, a shadowy, formless creature with a blue mask for a face carried the unconscious body of Sasaki away. The group is too far away to reach her before she and the monster disappeared. Just what the hell was that? If there are more of those creatures here, the group should probably find something to defend themselves. Kazuo suggested they look around for weapons and, better yet, an exit.
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