Chapter 2

The Meeting

Hitome Sato was immersed in taught. She was wondering how she would explain this to the school principal. In just 30 short minutes she would have to think of some way to do this. But how do you explain this problem to your boss? How do you explain that two of your best students are freaking you out?

They meet in the principal's office. Fujimoto Akio sat behind his desk with a serious face.

"So, what is this about Hitome-san?"

"I am simply worried about two of my students. They are truly freaking me out."

Hitome looks down in her lap. She is worried about what her boss will say to this statement. All teachers should be able to deal with these situations on their own.

"And what are these students' names, if I may ask?"

"Shibuya Yuri and Murata Ken."

"I have heard of these students. They are not quite normal, are they? What is it that bothers you?"

Hitome looks up at her boss. He has heard of them?

"They are quite strange. I have had many situations where they have done things I find truly freaky. It's not normal for 18 year old youths to do these things."

FLASHBACK

Hitome walked into the library. She had some free time before next period, and she wanted to check in on some of her students. They had a free period right now, so she expected some of them to be in the library. She could see some of them, but not as many as she would have wanted.

At the end of one table sat Shibuya Yuri and Murata Ken. When Hitome saw them she stopped. She was completely shocked by the sight. Murata sat with a dictionary in front of him and, by the sight of it, he was copying every word in it. Why would anyone do that? And it did not look like he was writing Japanese. The letters were unlike anything she had ever seen before.

But even more disturbing was Shibuya and his work. He had a huge pile of papers in front of him, all of them filled with these strange letters that Murata was writing. He read through every one of them, faster than I have ever seen anyone read anything before. At the end he signed them using a feather pen he dipped in an inkwell. And if this was not strange enough, she overheard some of their conversation:

"Hey Murata! How is the translation going?"

"Quite all right, Shibuya. I have known this language for over 4,000 years, so it is eve more natural to me than Japanese."

"I know that, baka. I was wondering how bored you were. It´s not like it is a exciting job to translate. Why did you even volunteer to do this?"

"Well, Anissina needed someone to do it for her brand new Translate-Everything-Into-the-Demon-Language-kun invention. So I thought why not me. I am the only one with the knowledge and the time to do so, after all"

"Yeah, you´re right on that part. There is no way I would have the time. You have no idea how much papers there are left to sign. I am not even 1/3 done!"

"Well, this is what it means to be king, after all. It was your decision."

"Of course, baka. I would not change it for the world, not this or the other!

END FLASHBACK

"So you see, sir. There are reasons to be worried. In addition to this, they are also doing other strange thing. They are extremely cautions around water, as if they are afraid to come near it. They can disappear for some time, and then come back wearing different clothes. And sometimes they talk or write in this strange language I have never heard of before."

Principal Fujimoto looked down at his desk.

"I know what you speak of. I have also seen these two acting strange for quite some time. It is almost a year since I started to keep an extra eye on them. Ever since I saw them entering the baths, fully dressed and carrying huge plastic bags, only to come out a few minutes later, without the bags and soaking wet. There is something not right with those two.

"Then what do you propose we do, Fujimoto-sama?"

Fujimoto thought on this for a while.

"Am I right when I say that you and your homeroom class are going on a trip this week? And that Shibuya and Murata are in this class?"

"Yes you are. We are going on a camping trip to relax before the graduation in a month."

"Well, then. I will come with you on this trip. We will both keep an eye on Shibuya Yuri and Murata Ken. If we believe that it is necessary, we will call in a three-way meeting after the trip."

"Won´t the students find it weird that their principal comes along on a class trip?"

"We´ll just say I want to show my support to this year's graduation class. No one will raise a question to that."

And then it was decided. But they had no idea what was going to happen on the trip.