Tales Past Twilight

Series of mysteries regarding the supernatural, solved by the Zweilts.

. . .

Tale 1

Photographic Girl

* AN: Anzu Mashiba is a canon character in the manga (from a short story). *


After the bell rings, the loud noise of camera snaps floods the entire school. Many teenagers wish to go home and rest or study, but many look back at their school and wonder, Who is causing that awful noise?

Freshman journalist Anzu Mashiba can tell them who it is - it is her, trying her best to capture the portraits of all Izumimari's unusual students in their natural habits.

And because of her behavior, her blatant disregard of her muses, she snaps a picture of a person she should not have.

At first, Anzu took a photo of the newest freshman in Izumimari: a black haired boy (though anyone could mistake him as a girl from behind) who hated to smile, laugh, and be a normal teenager.

She snaps a photo of him, chuckling at her results long enough for him to pinpoint her position and claim her camera.

"What do you think you're doing?" says the boy in a nasty tone, holding the camera out of her reach.

"Taking a photo of the most beautiful boy, of course," she lies, her brown eyes big.

"Yeah, right." The comment does not phase him. "What is this photo for? Blackmail material? For a hit list?"

Hit list? Who does he think he is?! "Um, no, I'm not trying to kill you or manipulate you! It's for my documentary! I'm taking a photo of all you weird and unusual students here at Izumimari."

The boy's gaze hardens. "That documentary thing again..." The rest of her words connect in his brain. "Oi, you're calling me weird?"

"Well am I wrong? You thought I was trying to kill you!"

He rolls his eyes. "Isn't everyone?"

"Seems to me you have a mad case of paranoia as well, to add upon your idiosyncrasies. You are now more weird than enigmatic. And somewhat unstable."

The boy stares at her in silence, finally saying, "I still have your camera. You're doing a shoddy job if you want it back."

At once, Anzu pales. "Return it to me now, or I'll get the teacher!"

"That's more than enough time for me to delete my picture off here."

She growls in frustration. "Just let me keep your creepiness!"

Feed up, Anzu takes quick note of her surroundings. They are outside, near a tree. She can climb up the tree a bit to retrieve her camera. It's not the first time she's ever climbed a tree.

(Yes, she climbed trees and walls to get a snapshot of the mysterious Shuusei Usui - too bad she can't find the boy long enough to take it for her documentary.)

So she presses her right foot on the bark, then the left all while gripping the boy's arm, and pushes off the trunk. The boy staggers in surprise. Anzu's fingertips graze her camera's bottom.

Then it all goes wrong.

The boy found her way more heavier than expected, so he began to fall. And because of his already weakening grip, her fingertips push the camera out of his hand and onto the concrete below. It slides away from them both.

The boy manages to land sitting, holding Anzu to make sure she would not get hurt, but her mind is elsewhere.

"My camera!"

She tugs herself out the boy's grip and kneels on the ground where her camera is, broken and battered. Its insides are now outsides. The lens is shot. Picking it up, all kinds of screws and metal bits fall out.

Her camera is useless.

"How could you?!" declares Anzu to the boy standing at her side. "My videos, my photos, they're all gone, you jerk!"

"Don't you dare blame me! You were the one taking photos without permission. You were the one who knocked the camera out of my hand, you impatient girl!"

Frustrated, Anzu attempts to kick him where it hurts most. The boy catches her ankle before the kick connects.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, Kuroto Hourai!" She wails in despair, trying to kick him.

"Stop being so dramatic! Go buy another one."

"My data is still gone, you jerk! I could've beat Hotsuma! Let me go!"

With her foot free, Anzu grabs all pieces of her camera and runs away, the teen boy looking at her in a mix of guilt and annoyance.

Anzu stuffs the remains of her camera in her bag and leaves school in a run.

Hotsuma's going to beat me! His documentary is going to be the best thing ever! Everyone will go to him instead of me for their video needs! This isn't far, not fair, not fair!

She stops running to catch her breath and to rub her wet eyes and cheeks with a sweater sleeve. Once again, her talent is being undermined by someone better than her so suddenly. There is nothing she can do. It's already Tuesday afternoon.

Cutting through her despair is a sudden cold breeze in the middle of spring. She shivers, clutching her bag close to her chest.

An echoing voice fills her ears: "You have lost something important to you. I can give it back. For a small price."

"H-Hey, who's there?!" She looks around, but the people she sees are normal, paying her no mind. Is this a prank? Joke?

"I will restore your camera in its full glory. Once I do, you have to do me a small favor," the voice continues.

Anzu realizes only she can feel the breeze and hear the voice. "Who are you? I don't understand..."

"Take a photo of the Light of God. Make sure 3 or more are in the frame. He must be in the middle of the humans. Take a picture of him and consider your debt paid."

"What...who...I don't know what you're talking about!" She shouts, aware of people are giving her worried looks, but they don't matter right now.

"You may know him as Yuki Giou. Take a picture of him and consider your debt paid."

"Let me have a say in this!" The cold air surrounding her vanishes, but her bag is freezing. She reaches in, jerking her hand away from the cold metal. She covers her sleeve over her hand and grabs her camera.

It's restored. All her videos and her photos are there. The camera looks even better than when she first bought it! Incredible.

Make sure there's 3 in a frame? Anzu takes a photo of the three nearest people. At first, the bright light blinds them. Then the man in the middle disappears before her eyes, his ashes tracing back to the camera's lens.

"Oh...oh my gosh," Anzu stammers.

The people caught in the flash have fully dilated pupils. They look at her.

"I'm sorry..." murmurs the journalist.

"It's Anzu!"

"What an amazing photographer!"

"Take my picture, take my picture!"

A crowd of eager faces surround her.

They're...not mad at me? Then more confidently: Well! Thanks to this camera, that documentary is going to be easy.

.

.

Kuroto slams the door into the wall, shouting, "Great job, loser! Your laziness caused some girl to cry!"

Hotsuma jolts awake in his seat, his videogame paused. He rubs at his eyes while Kuroto walks into his view.

"Whaddya - "

"Pigtails, brown eyes, slender," Kuroto says. "Know a girl? She's a freshman like us."

Hotsuma takes a long moment to think. "Uh...er...I keep thinking about apricots."

"This isn't the time for food!"

"Wait! That girl is...Anzu something. What about her?"

Kuroto gasps at the mention of Anzu. "So she's the journalist girl. Yes, her personality sounds right."

"Get to the chase, bean boy!"

"Look, your project is making people like Anzu - who actually try their best as humans - cry. She's a journalist who lives for these kinds of things. You screwed her over, Hotsuma."

Hotsuma winces. "Okay, okay. I'll tone down the footage and stuff."

"And you'll do her one more favor."

"Eh?"

"You'll buy her a new camera."

"WHAT?!"

"Don't you realize how old her camera is? Takashiro can afford for us to have new cameras, but her parents can't do the same for her. Buy her a new camera."

The wild boy grits his teeth and growls. "Fine. But I don't got any money."

"You could ask your partner. He'd do just about anything for you, anyways."

Hotsuma gets up and stomps out the room, slamming doors again. Kuroto rubs at his blossoming headache.

The following school morning begins as normal.

Hotsuma is the only one late to school, but he has Anzu's new camera in hand and a debt to Shuusei. He drops into his seat and starts sleeping.

Yuki plays with his camera absentmindedly while he thinks of his documentary. What could he record? Memory is important to the boy. Yet it's hard to represent that on tape.

I could...videotape some people with amnesia or possibly Alzheimer's, he thinks.

Yuki looks up when he hears noises and Anzu's loud voice above his classmates: "Please line up here to get your picture taken for my documentary!"

Yuki gets up and slips into the middle of the crowd forming in his classroom. Anzu seems to have lined up three students - each of them having something weird about them - while his classmates watch in absolute fascination.

3 in a photo? thinks he, feeling odd.

"Okay!" Anzu aims her camera. "When I say 'cheese,' smile! Ready? One, two, cheeese!"

Yuki knows how terrible the number 3 can be, especially in a photo. Still, it was only superstition until Anzu shot her picture and the person in the middle of the three students is absorbed into the camera while Yuki watches in horror.

His classmates, though, cheer.

Anzu turns around, bows to the crowd. "Anyone else weird who would like to go next?"

Yuki escapes the rowdy crowd. What on earth? There is something going on. My classmates are brainwashed. The camera absorbs souls. Yuki nudges Hotsuma awake and explains everything.

"We need the others," he states and takes off.

All of the Zweilt attending Izumimari gather at the tree outside.

"Without a doubt," Shuusei says, "this is the work of a Duras. The deal obviously involved her camera."

"Why is it absorbing souls?" says Kuroto.

Tooko explains to him, "Some people believe photos of 3 persons can absorb souls - the person in the middle. That would make Anzu incredibly difficult to defeat normally, because there can never be more than 2 in a frame."

"Then let's try 4 or more in a frame," offers Kuroto.

"I don't know," Yuki says, "it's possible that if 4 are in the frame, the middle will still be absorbed. So the middle 2 in the 4 will be absorbed into the camera."

"Or nothin' could happen," adds Hotsuma. "Kinda don't want to try it out."

"We need to stop her immediately, but not here," Shuusei explains. "We can't use our powers to the fullest extent and there are innocents around. Too many."

"So the next best thing is luring her out of here and fight," Tooko says.

"Exactly."

Anzu Mashiba stops walking. Ever since she noticed Yuki and Hotsuma vanish, she had to follow them. It would be bad for her contract - and her wonderful recordings and photos! - if the boy got away.

After much searching, she finds the boy next to more weird and unusual students: the twins, the jerk Kuroto, Hotsuma, and Shuusei. From her vantage of three floors up, Anzu places Yuki in frame, a girl to his right and Kuroto to his left.

"Ah, Yuki Giou, we meet again. You are quite the strange one. What does 'Light of God' mean? Why does my contractor want you so badly? You are very mysterious indeed."

With her finger, she winds up the camera and takes the shot.

And with that, Yuki Giou is absorbed into her collection.

Tale 1, Part 2

Photographic Girl