Lin, Mai and Naru arrived at the scheduled time to Karakura High School. Filing out of the van, Mai was the first to notice their Karakura employer and guide, Mizuiro Kojima, sitting on a courtyard bench.
Mai perked at the sight of her new acquaintance and enthusiastically yelled across the courtyard, "Mizuiro! How are you?" When she saw Mizuiro happily waving in response, she waved back and began strolling towards him.
She was suddenly jerked back though when the jerk she worked for shoved a heavy black equipment case in front of her.
"If you're well enough to wave you're well enough to carry equipment." Naru left the bag in Mai's arms then turned his melancholic ass around to retrieve more bags.
"HEY. What happened to all that concern you were showing earlier?"
"Like I stated before, you are well enough to carry equipment, so carry the equipment."
Mai glared at the two work hounds simultaneously unloading the van before noticing an awkward turtle in her peripheral. Mizuiro was still standing there not sure what to do with himself.
"Don't you think we should go and greet Mizuiro before getting everything ready? I mean it seems he's been waiting here for us."
Without even glancing back towards Mai, Naru responded, "We greeted him when he came to ask for our services, now we are providing said services. If he wants us to get the job done then he should leave us to do our work in peace."
'Since when is this freakin' job peaceful?'
"We've unloaded everything we need for now. Lin, lock up the van and Mai, shut up and carry what your small frame can manage into the building."
Mai chose to ignore her arrogant boss' comments and continued the stroll over to Mizuiro that she had started earlier. She also conveniently did not hear Naru's request and strolled along with the one bag still in her arms.
"Sorry about that, my boss is a real workaholic so he's really… excited to get started." Mai wouldn't say excited as much as she would say something like creep-ish-ly intrigued, but she saw no need to worry Mizuiro anymore than he already was.
He nervously glanced at Naru and Lin ominously striding towards them with the equipment in tow, gave an equally nervous chuckle and said, "Oh, no problem, I'm just happy someone's willing to help." Mizuiro smiled politely as he felt the dark, and as Mai would say narcissistic, aura inching towards him.
Knowing that the boss man's patience was severely waning, Mai reluctantly urged Mizuiro to show them inside and direct them to the room they would use as their home base. Upon crossing the threshold of the building, Mai didn't notice any changes in the air around her, nor did she feel any unwelcomed presences. It seemed like a normal high school to Mai. It wasn't until they had been led down a few hallways that Mai recollected what Mizuiro had said when he came to the SPR office.
There's something… weird happening to all of my friends.
Now she remembered; it's not the school that's disturbed. According to Mizuiro, it was his friends. Mai thought about the type of people she was going to meet on this job when the group arrived at the empty classroom they would be allowed to use for their investigation.
"Here we are," Mizuiro opened and held the door for the investigators and they filed in. "All I could really manage to get my administration to agree with is a room and a few tables, as well as permission to wander the building so long as the classes remain undisturbed. I hope that will be enough." Mizuiro had a very genuine look on his face, it seemed that he really wished he could have been of more assistance to SPR.
Mai was touched by his efforts in a completely bizarre situation. "Don't worry ab—"
"First of all, I mentioned before that there were going to be interviews and throughout the day I will require these people to be delivered to this room for said interviews. Also, in order to gather visual evidence we will need permission to hook up our recording devices around the building. Finally, I will need the personal information and schedules of your friends, the ones you believe to be experiencing the haunting."
Mai was angry at Naru for demanding so much from Mizuiro all at once but before she could voice her aggravation, a cool and collected voice chimed in, "I have a list of people for you and your team to interview but I can't pull them out of their classes, especially since I'll be in class as well. I can however bring them during break periods. As for the cameras, it was difficult but I actually managed to get permission from the administration for that. And finally, I figured you would want some information on them so I wrote up what I thought would be helpful, unfortunately the only thing I know about their schedules is their classes. Is that enough to get things started for you guys?"
Mai stared in awe at this astoundingly well put together teenager in front of her. She thought about it and decided that, in her experience with SPR, they had never come across a more well prepared client. She wondered if Mizuiro was secretly really into this occult stuff.
Naru noticed Mai's staring and sent his hand flying to the back of her head.
"Ow! What the hell, Naru?!" Mai held her head where she had been struck and turned angrily to her boss.
"That will be fine. Be sure to only send one person at a time for interviews and also make sure that these people we will be talking to do not inform the few in question of our presence here. If that's clear then you may leave."
Mai figured that she wouldn't be getting any sort of explanation as to why it was necessary to hit her so she put her head pain aside for the moment and waved to a slightly terrified, leaving Mizuiro.
Before the door was even shut all the way, Naru was back to barking orders. "Mai, I want you to start organizing the computers on these tables with Lin and when you've finished with that I want you to make me some tea."
Mai sighed in frustration. "Where am I supposed to make this tea of yours? That wasn't on your list of things to request from Mizuiro so how am I supposed to know?" Mai had assumed full 'you're being a jerk, Naru' mode complete with an aggravated glare and her hands on her hips.
"It's not my job to do yours, and your job includes making the tea. Therefore, it is not my responsibility to know where you can make it." Her stance was not very effective; Naru had already placed himself comfortably in an available chair and had his nose in a file.
Mai fumed at her boss' ability to always knock her back down to her place and sucked air into her nostrils to yell, "Yeah well you can't honestly believe it's OK for you to just sit there and read while Lin and I do all of your dirty work!"
"It's important that I read all of this information written down by Mizuiro so that I may have a better understanding of what we will be up against. Now, will you please stop whining like a child and do as you're told for once."
"FOR ONCE? I am ALWAYS doing something for you, you know!" Mai was blushing fairly hard again. No matter how mad she is, this much interaction with him will do that to her. She had also completely forgotten about her calm and cool method she had assumed earlier.
"You are constantly doing something for me because you work for me. You are my assistant, so don't you think it makes sense for you to carry out the tasks I ask you to complete?" Naru said all that without even glancing up at her, probably because he was just use to having to bicker with her on a regular basis. He felt himself wishing she would go back to how she was behaving before back at the office. He brushed it off realizing that it was probably just some idea she had fancied herself with and decided that he would likely never see hide nor hair of that behavior again. "I swear you're a complete idiot."
Mai fought hard to hold in her screaming anger and, in a normal tone said, "Yeah and I swear you're a slave driver… stupid Naru." Despite her need to be violent, she forced herself to just help Lin set up. Mai had obviously been in countless arguments like this with Naru so she knew it was a fruitless effort. If she didn't let herself relinquish her anger towards him every once in a while though, she probably would have quit long ago.
Through the whole argument, Lin just went about his business. He had become use to this to the point where it was a normal occurrence that he expected. He casually handed Mai some cords for her to plug in when she inevitably wandered over to help like Naru had requested.
While putting things together, Mai calmed herself down by letting her mind wander. Occasionally she caught her mind wandering back to Naru and when she did, she blushed and shook her head as if that would make her thoughts and her blushing disappear. She would have gotten a few strange looks for this process if she hadn't been in a room with the man with the immovable focus and… Naru.
Eventually, Mai's mind ended up on her experience in the van on the way to Karakura. She thought to herself, 'What could that have even been? We've never come across anything like it before…' While thinking deeply about that, an unexpected image of the road they were on when it happened flashed in her mind. 'Why did I think of that? Maybe those weird cracks have something to do with that black blur I saw.'
Without even realizing it, Mai had been paralyzed by her racing mind and Lin was left to finish the job himself. She found herself staring down at a keyboard that she had placed on the table and her unrelenting gaze was only diverted when she felt hand land on her left shoulder.
She instantly snapped out of her reverie and the blushing ensued. "What?"
"I just thought I'd help your simple mind to focus on the task at hand." Naru still had his files in his other hand at his side and Mai could tell that he was irritated that he had to come and remind Mai once again of her duties.
Mai was still too enveloped with her thoughts and theories about earlier to get angry at the moment, so instead she just brushed Naru's hand off of her shoulder. "I'll go make the tea."
Naru was only slightly taken aback by her willingness to work. He quickly composed himself and said as she was nearing the door, "Try not to make too much noise in the hallways, while we were setting up in here the school day started so there are classes in session."
With that she was on her way out the door to attempt to find tea as well as the means to make it. What she had neglected to mention earlier when she and Naru were arguing was that she was in a way looking forward to wandering the school. She wanted to get a good look around and discover for herself if there was anything hiding in Karakura High School. Mai also realized at this point that by wandering around, it would provide ample to for her to think undisturbed. She wanted to understand it. She wanted to just know what was going on, and if she did, maybe Naru wouldn't continue to call her useless. Though she was fairly certain it was just in Naru's nature to degrade others, she still felt some kind of need to prove herself. She was going to figure this out, but as for right now she only had a couple of pieces from what was looking to be a complicated puzzle.
Mai slowed her thoughts for a moment to analyze the hallway she was in and noticed that all of the doorways basically led into just classrooms, not what she needs to make tea. As she continued to walk down the hall she casually glanced into the rooms as she passed them. She didn't really notice anything besides math lectures, which was enough to get her walking a little bit faster. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye she noticed something that cemented her feet to the floor.
As she walked past these classrooms the first thing she saw was the students sitting in their sits and as she kept walking she could eventually see the teacher lecturing at the front of the class. Towards the end of the hallway, something that didn't belong popped out at her from a room. She turned her head to get a full view of the anomaly, and when she did, her breathing stopped. She had no idea if it was directly related or not but… how could it not be? It was just so out of place. There, sitting in the middle of the room, was a male student with, completely unexpectedly, bright orange hair.
…towards the top of the obscure black mass was a strangely placed orange blur moving with the black—
She stared intensely, with her mind racing a million miles a minute, at this orange headed Karakura student until eventually her gaze was met with his. Mai panicked and quickly unglued her feet from the floor and sped down the rest of the hallway and took a left into the next one.
One, I'm sorry this chapter took so freakin long! Two, I'm sorry it kind of sucks. I really don't want to rush the story so I wanted to take my time, as much as I could, to introduce everything and get everything settled. I promise I have ideas to make it more interesting in the future!
