A/N: This update was rather expedient. The next one probably won't be up anytime soon, though.
After the final bell sounded the end of the school day, the girls gathered together with the same destination in mind. "We're going there right?" Tomo excitedly asked as Yomi gathered her books into her bag.
"Yeah, yeah," Yomi assured as she looked around to see a lot of the rest of the gang looking in her direction. "Let's meet up at the table," she announced loud enough for all of the girls to hear. Just after making the announcement, Yomi couldn't help but make her way to the library. Even though she wouldn't admit it, she was possibly just as excited about this as Tomo if that was even possible. As they got to the library, they found it to be fairly sparsely populated. Only two students from the library club were there along with a couple more students, who seemed to be browsing. "This might not be so hard after all," Yomi noted as she sat at the table where they signed the book.
"Why are we waiting here?" Tomo scoffed as she leaned on the table instead of sitting properly. "Let's go wait for them in there," she asserted.
"You really want Osaka trying to get into the club by herself?" Yomi asked rhetorically as she kept her eyes locked on the entrance.
Tomo nodded. "Good point," she admitted as she also looked to the entrance. "Hey, there's a lot of people coming in."
"It's going to be rough, after all," Yomi agreed as she watched two students enter for each student that left.
"Sakaki!" Tomo shouted and waved as she spied the tall girl in the entryway.
Her usual vigor earned her a smack in the back of the head. "This is a library," Yomi hissed, "and on top of that, we need to keep a low profile!"
"Hey," Sakaki greeted as she approached the table with Chiyo in tow.
"Have Osaka and Kagura shown up yet?" Chiyo politely asked as she took a seat.
Yomi shook her head. "No sign of Osaka, and I wouldn't hold my breath on Kagura's coming here. I saw her bolt as soon as class let out, not to mention that fuss she made yesterday."
"She'd better not be telling Yukari or Nyamo about this," Tomo huffed.
"There she is," Sakaki noted as she turned to the entrance.
"Kagura?" Tomo asked as she looked to the doors only to find Osaka. "Oh, you meant her," Tomo observed in a deadpan tone.
Osaka waved as she approached. "Hey guys," she greeted as she made sure to stand next to Tomo.
"What the hell?" Tomo scolded with a big smile as she smacked Osaka in the back of the head. "We're all girls here!"
"Ehehe," Osaka giggled despite Tomo's overly enthusiastic reprimand. "That's right."
"If you two are through making lame jokes, we need to come up with a plan to get in there without getting caught," Yomi interrupted the girls' fun. "It looks like there are a lot of people in here now, so it won't be easy. Not to mention that we need to get cleaning supplies in there, and that is going to look suspicious no matter what we do."
"We jus' need a good distraction," Osaka suggested.
As soon as the words left Osaka's mouth, all eyes fell on Tomo. "I can think of a pretty good candidate," Yomi dryly remarked.
Tomo easily caught the hint. "I'm on it!" she boisterously announced as she tried to dash off only to be held back by Yomi.
"Wait for us to get the cleaning stuff," the brunette scolded. "And make sure you make your commotion as far away from the entrance as you can."
The wildcat offered Yomi a salute. "Understood!" she proclaimed.
Yomi then motioned to Sakaki. "All right, Sakaki and I will get the stuff," she suggested before pointing to Osaka and Chiyo. "You two just wait for us near the entrance. I'll call Tomo when Sakaki and I are ready. Understood?"
Everyone nodded except for Tomo, who maintained her salute. The wildcat couldn't help but smile as Yomi left with Sakaki. "This'll be fun!" she admitted as she could barely contain her excitement. Sure enough, in just a couple of minutes, the wildcat's phone rang. Not even bothering to answer it, Tomo shouted a battle cry as she took off.
As Chiyo and Osaka stood by the camouflaged door, several loud bangs and screams announced that Tomo had started her distraction. "She's really into it," Chiyo observed. "I wonder if this is really okay."
"It makes ya wonder how much she usually holds back," Osaka replied.
Chiyo shuddered at the suggestion. "That's… a really scary thought."
"Time to go," Yomi alerted the duo as she and Sakaki showed up. "Are we clear?"
"Clear?" Osaka repeated, not quite understanding the question.
"No one is looking," Chiyo added, prompting Yomi to open the door.
All four girls quickly piled in, and just as Yomi was about to close the door, Tomo dashed in and, unable to stop, bounced off of the far wall. "That was… great," Tomo reveled in a daze as Yomi managed to seal the door.
"Did anyone see you come in?" Yomi scolded the exhausted girl.
"Ah don't see anyone," Osaka replied as she looked through one of the many slits in the wall of the hidden passage.
Osaka's words and actions hit Yomi like a brick. "So that's what those are for!" Yomi realized as she quickly approached the nearest one. "You can easily see if anyone is about to enter this aisle," she observed.
"Who cares?" Tomo spat as she started for the stairs. "Let's hurry up and go!"
"Not so loud!" Yomi hissed as everyone tailed after the wildcat.
Tomo stopped in her tracks halfway down the stairs, forcing everyone behind her to bunch up. "I thought I turned that light out?" she mumbled to herself as she found the light in the room at the bottom of the steps to be switched on. Her wonder quickly changed to anger as a possibility hit her. "If Kagura told Yukari and Nyamo, I'll never forgive her!" the wildcat growled as she took off and rushed into the room.
The rest quickly followed suit, and upon entering, they all had the same question on their lips: "Kagura?"
"It's about time you guys showed up!" Kagura scolded as she dumped the rag she'd been using to wipe off the couch into a bucket of clouded water.
"Wha-How did you get in here?" Yomi demanded. "We had to go through a lot to get in without being noticed."
"Our room is right down the hall from the library," Kagura pointed out the obvious. "I just ran here as soon as class let out. There wasn't anyone here at all."
Yomi chuckled at her own ineptitude. "That easy, huh? You even managed to get some cleaning supplies in here."
"Um… why are you here?" Chiyo asked as Yomi and Sakaki divvied up the supplies they had acquired.
Kagura looked up from her task with confusion evident on her face. "Huh?"
"Didn't you say that you were against all of this?" Chiyo recalled.
"I said that I had a bad feeling and that I think we should talk to Sensei about it," Kagura corrected. "I still feel that way."
"But you're here anyway!" Tomo exuberantly pointed out in an effort to annoy the tomboy.
Kagura growled at the obvious taunt. "Of course I am. Even if I have a bad feeling, this place is still kind of cool. Not to mention I already signed my name."
"So that's all it takes to buy your loyalty?" Tomo scoffed in a mocking tone.
"It's like you want me to hit you," Kagura threatened as she sent Tomo a fierce glare.
"That's how it seems," Yomi jumped in, eager to give Tomo a taste of her own medicine. "Even though she always seems sadistic, in reality it's more like Tomo's a masochist trying her damndest to get punished, right?"
"Ah! You're right!" Both Kagura and Osaka chimed in, getting more than a little rise out of the wildcat.
"It's not like that!" Tomo boisterously defended herself.
The whole time, Chiyo and Sakaki had been standing by waiting for everyone to settle down so they could start cleaning. Chiyo had been able to follow the conversation to a certain point, but there were a few words even the genius girl didn't have in her vocabulary. "What's a masochist?" Chiyo innocently asked Sakaki, who blushed at hearing the question.
"It's, ah…" the tall girl fumbled as she was put on the spot. "The opposite of a sadist… I guess," she lamely dodged.
Chiyo blinked a couple of times as she tried her best to make sense of the explanation. "A sadist is a mean person, right? So everyone's saying that Tomo is really a nice person?"
"S-something like that," Sakaki lied again. As soon as the redhead seemed to be satisfied with the explanation, Sakaki made sure to quickly move and start cleaning as far away from Chiyo in hopes of also getting herself away from the embarrassing conversation she just had.
Spying Sakaki vigorously throw herself into cleaning, Yomi couldn't help but feel a bit childish as she stood and argued with the three idiots. "Sakaki's got the right idea," she announced as she turned on her heel and grabbed a rag and bucket. "We've got a lot of work to do still."
"I guess so," Kagura conceded as she, too, abandoned her argument with Tomo and got back to her task of wiping down the couch.
"Ha! See, I was right all along!" Tomo boasted, even though she couldn't remember half of what the squabble was about.
Once the group all got to working together, it didn't take but a few hours to get the club room looking clean. "That was an ordeal," Yomi huffed as she flopped down onto the couch, somewhat proud of how well the room looked when it was clean.
"I don't ever want to do that again," Tomo agreed as she sat down next to the brunette.
"We'll probably need to do something like this before and after each long break from school," Yomi pointed out, eliciting a collective moan from everyone in the room.
"What a pain," Kagura complained as she flipped the TV on before grabbing a tape and shoving it into the VCR.
"At least refreshing our supplies and exchanging the water in the buckets gave us a good chance to practice sneaking in and out of here without drawing too much attention," Yomi appreciated as she did her best to look on the bright side.
Tomo growled and jumped up as she pointed to the door sealed up with boards and spirit wards. "We wouldn't have to have had to go through all that trouble if you just would have let me tear that stuff down so we can get in there! It's gotta be a bathroom!" she exuberantly yelled.
"I was yelling at you earlier because you were too busy uselessly trying to rip those boards off to do any cleaning like you were supposed to be doing," Yomi corrected with a bit of ire in her voice. "And if memory serves, you gave up on your own when you finally realized that you couldn't budge those boards no matter how hard you tried."
"Ya'll said it was a storage room before, too, not a bathroom," Osaka added.
Tomo couldn't help but to growl at the completely true accusations. "I'll show you guys!" she challenged before pointing to Chiyo. "Come spot for me!" the annoying girl demanded before rushing to the stairs.
"I'm glad she couldn't get in there," Kagura admitted from her spot at the end of the table as Chiyo obediently followed after Tomo. "It's creepy."
"It is kinda scary," Osaka agreed as she took the front row seat to the television next to Kagura. "I kinda wonder what could be in there, though," she admitted as she cast a glance at the ominous door.
Yomi observed the door for a moment before putting her two cents in. "I'm with Kagura. It looks like someone went through a lot of trouble to seal that door off. You don't do that kind of think without a good reason."
Sakaki nodded in agreement from her spot on the loveseat even though no one was looking at her. "We should leave it alone."
Even Osaka was a bit swayed by her friends' positions on the matter, though not by much. "Ah still kinda wonder what's in there," Osaka stated as she looked again to the menacing door.
At just about that time, a rapid thumping announced to everyone that the wildcat had returned. Tomo boisterously reentered the room proudly brandishing a crowbar that she got from who-knows-where. "I'll show you!" Tomo claimed again as she rushed to the sealed door.
"Back already?" Yomi exclaimed, fully surprised that the wildcat had somehow been in and out of there in so little time. "And where the hell did that crowbar come from?"
Tomo, of course, didn't pay Yomi much mind as she was too busy trying to prove herself right. Wedging the crowbar behind one of the boards, the wildcat managed to start to pull the wood away from the door. "It's working!"
"Don't do that!" Kagura scolded as she ran up to Tomo and tried to grab the crowbar away from her.
Refusing to relinquish the metal bar, Tomo threw all of her energy into keeping hold of the treasured object. "You won't get the glory this time!" she challenged. "I'm opening this one!"
"I don't care about that!" Kagura grunted as she did her best to rip the crowbar from Tomo's hands.
Finally winning the tug-of-war, Tomo jumped out of Kagura's reach, prompting the tomboy to press herself against the door in an attempt to interfere with the wildcat. "Outta the way!" Tomo demanded.
"This place was boarded up for a reason!" Kagura claimed. "It's even got spirit wards! What if there's something evil sealed in there?"
"Don't be stupid! Those sorts of things don't really exist!" Tomo scolded. "All that's gonna be in there is more cool stuff, and it's all gonna be mine!"
"It's no use arguing with her," Yomi advised. "Even if she gets cursed she won't learn anything."
"I don't want to get cursed!" Kagura asserted as she refused to move away from the door.
Tomo raised the crowbar above her head in a threatening manner. "I'm using this on the door or on you!" she warned.
"Just let her have her way," Yomi urged as she scooted over to allow Chiyo so sit down next to her. "We're going to work on our homework together," she invited the two arguing girls as she grabbed her bag. "Feel free to join us."
"You're just going to sit by and do nothing?" Kagura demanded as she reluctantly stepped away from the door, unsure of how serious Tomo was about her threat.
"Worst-case scenario is that she hurts herself," Yomi dismissed as she laid out her books next to Chiyo's. "Sounds like a win-win if you ignore the racket she's going to make, but then again, she's loud no matter what happens."
Kagura growled as she stormed up to the couch and grabbed her bag. "I have a really bad feeling about this," the tomboy admitted as she headed towards the stairs. "I'm not gonna stick around here and get cursed."
"Ah never figured that Kagura was so superstitious," Osaka commented as Kagura disappeared up the stairs.
"I believe it," Sakaki announced as she joined Chiyo and Yomi at the table. She couldn't help but pause as she noted the small silver bell attached to her bag before opening it to retrieve her books. "That kind of thing is real," she asserted.
"If ya'll believe in it, then are ya gonna leave like Kagura?" Osaka questioned, surprised that Sakaki was also superstitious.
Sakaki looked to the door and the wildcat who was doing her best to try and rip the boards off before shaking her head. "Maybe it's friendly."
A loud clank sounded as Tomo finally pried the first board free. Although the task was proving quite a bit harder than she expected, the wildcat wasn't deterred. "Hey, if Kagura's scared of ghosts, we should come up with something to spook her tomorrow!" Tomo insisted as she slid the crowbar behind the second board. "It'd be a riot!"
Doing her best to ignore her irritating friend, Yomi turned back to Osaka. "Are you going to join us?" Yomi invited as she motioned to Sakaki, who was already working together with her and Chiyo.
"What subject?" Osaka asked as she turned back to the TV.
"English," Yomi absentmindedly reported as she studied the materials in front of her.
"Ah'll pass," Osaka dismissed with a wave of her hand. The space cadet continued to stare at the TV for a few moments before a sudden thought hit her. "This here is nice an' all," she started as she turned around to face the group, "but how's this club any different from goin' ta Chiyo's place?"
Taking a look around, it was pretty clear that, aside from being secret, there wasn't a whole lot that was special about this place. "It's easier for all of us to gather here than to go all the way to Chiyo's, but I guess I can see your point." Putting her schoolbook aside, she recovered the leather-bound tome from her bag. "There are a lot of entries here from the previous presidents," she explained as she opened the book and flipped a few pages. "Many of them mention rearranging, adding, or removing things in the club room. I guess we can pretty much do anything we want to this room so long as we don't attract any attention."
It didn't even take half a second for Sakaki to respond to that statement. "Cat," she seriously requested.
"Ah! That's a great idea!" Chiyo praised before turning to Yomi. "We could keep a pet in here, right?"
"I'm not so sure," Yomi contradicted after a few moments of contemplation. "For the most part, I don't see a problem so long as it's a cat, but what about when we're on break from school? There wouldn't be anyone here to take care of it, and I'm pretty sure none of us could take it home, either."
"I… didn't think about that," Chiyo conceded.
"Just put it in a kennel!" Tomo butted in as she managed to pry another board from the doorframe. "That's what we do with Kuro whenever we're out of town."
"Do kennels take care of cats?" Yomi inquired, skeptical of any advice coming from the annoying girl.
"Dunno!" Tomo uselessly replied.
Yomi sighed at the typical answer. "If you want to keep a pet in here, then you should look into it," she advised as she turned her attention to Sakaki. "You should also consider the costs associated with keeping something like that."
Sakaki gave an enthusiastic nod, having already made up her mind that it didn't matter at all how much it would cost. She'd pay any amount to get the privilege of having her very own cat.
"Don't you sound like quite the adult," Tomo chastised Yomi's overly mature advice.
"I can't be a child forever, unlike you," Yomi countered.
"Yomi's just jealous that she's lost all of the splendor and innocence of her childhood," Tomo shot back.
"Exactly which part of you is innocent?" Yomi retorted. "You are pure evil wrapped up in a cute little package."
"So that leaves me with an innocent appearance!" Tomo easily rose to Yomi's challenge as she managed to pull another board free.
Yomi sighed as she resigned from the battle of wits. After all, it's hard to beat someone who will do anything to win. Be it stupidly flawed logic, sacrificing her own image and ego, or even putting her own health at risk, nothing can deter the infamous wildcat from harassing others. "You really have a lot of growing up to do," Yomi grumbled as she shifted her attention back to studying.
The girls continued their activities in relative silence as Tomo tore down board after board. It may have taken her a good twenty minutes and a lot more effort than she had expected, but the wild girl finally managed to pry away each and every board. "It's done!" Tomo excitedly announced as she frantically tried to work the doorknob, only to discover that it wouldn't budge. "It's locked!" she shouted in anger as she kicked the door.
Yomi had to stifle her laughter at the wildcat's stupidity. "They took the time to board it up and slap spirit wards on it, why on earth wouldn't they lock it?"
Tomo didn't pay the brunette any mind as she forced the crowbar into the door. "Come on!"
Curiosity winning out, both Yomi and Osaka got up to see the grand unveiling. "You get it?" Yomi asked as she approached the wildcat.
As if on cue, a loud bang sounded as the door flew open the crowbar clattered to the ground. "I did it!" Tomo gloated as she stepped into the mystery room and flicked on the light. As soon as the light came on, Tomo backpedalled and crashed into Yomi and Osaka.
"Oh… shit," Yomi breathed as she motionlessly held up Tomo and simply stared into the room.
"It's all dried up," Osaka observed as she peeked in to find that the room was, in fact, a rather large storage closet. The only thing that seemed to matter at the moment, though, was the clearly human corpse sprawled out on the floor. "Is it a mummy?" Osaka asked as she turned to Yomi. The bespectacled brunette just slowly shook her head as words completely failed her.
Seeing that something was amiss, Chiyo and Sakaki cautiously rose to their feet. "Wh-what is it?" Chiyo fearfully asked.
"It-it's a…a-a-a cor… a corpse!" Tomo stammered out as she finally started to recover from the shock.
Unfortunately for the five girls, it was in that moment that the sun succumbed to the horizon, and night overthrew day.