Chapter Six
"Hurry up Michael, you should have packed last night!" Amon called from Michael's entryway. Robin waited behind him, peering in the room she saw Michael tangled up in cords. "You don't have to bring every electronic device you own!"
Michael rolled his eyes. "I'm only bringing my laptop, DVD player, camera-"
"Just hurry up." Amon interrupted. He turned and headed for the stairs.
"Wait!" Michael grabbed his half-open suitcase and hobbled out the door to catch up. He tripped on a cord hanging out of the suitcase and was sending him, in a mix between spinning like a ballerina and stumbling as if on ice, into Amon. The older man glared down at him. "Uh, sorry." Michael shut the suitcase and pulled on his coat.
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When Robin, Amon, and Michael arrived at the train station, Karasuma and Dojima were already there.
Karasuma stood tapping her foot and staring at her watch. Dojima was sitting on her suitcase, pouting. Karasuma looked up. "There you are!" She and Amon began discussing train times and tickets.
"What's wrong?" Robin asked Dojima.
"We're not taking an airplane!" Dojima cried. Robin thought this was obvious because they were at a train station. "I don't like boats."
"Oh!" Robin nodded in understanding.
"Hey, where's Sakaki?" Michael asked, glancing around.
"Not here yet And I've been here for a whole frickin' hour!" Dojima shouted, throwing her arms into the air for dramatic effect.
"An hour?" Robin was shocked, that would mean that she would have left her house at five thirty.
"I know." the blond referred to Robin's expression. "'Chief Karasuma' wanted to come early and since she assumes I'll be late, She forcers me to come with her!" She sighed and continued pouting.
"Well you know what assuming does," Michael said. "It makes an ass out of 'u' and 'me'."
Sakaki entered the station and walked over to the group. "Where have you been?" Karasuma demanded.
"Oh, well…" Sakaki started awkwardly. "I went to the south station by accident."
The train ride took about half of the day and everyone became restless. Finally, they came to the dock where the next leg of their journey would begin. The second half was spent by the side of the boat watching Dojima barf and cry about wanting an airplane. By the time they reached the hot springs that they would be staying at, everyone was exhausted.
Karasuma went to the check-in counter while the others collapsed in some chairs in the entryway. "Do you have a reservation?" The check-in guy asked politely.
"Yes, except I'm not sure what name the chief used…" She turned a questioning look towards the others, Amon shook his head and Michael shrugged being the only other two who knew anything about the trip. "Let's try STN-J."
"No but there is one under the name 'stingy'." the clerk said.
"Stingy?" Karasuma thought it over in her head. "Could I see?" The clerk turned the computer screen towards her; the reservation was clearly under the name 'STN-J'. She tried to keep herself from laughing at the guy, he was trying to pronounce the acronym. "Yeah that's us."
"Alrighty then, your rooms are 124 and 126." The clerk handed over the keys.
"Hey, I was wondering." Sakaki started as they began down the hall. "Why are the rooms to the right 111 then 113 and the ones on the left 112 and 114? Can't they just make one big line?"
"They do it that way just to confuse you." Amon replied.
"You know I think he may be right." Sakaki nodded. He seemed to think that everything Amon said was serious.
They stopped at their rooms. "Amon, you take the guys in 126." Karasuma pointed to the farther room. The boys continued to their room and the girls entered theirs. The room was just one plain square. One large window took up the back wall and the wall to the right was a slide away door to conjoin their room with the boys. A small table sat in a corner next to a small closet.
Dojima staggered into the room and collapsed onto the floor. "Ya'know Karasuma, putting us on that boat was evil." She lifted up her arm to get a look at her watch. "And now we don't have any time to go to the hot springs!"
"We'll be here all week, you'll find time." Karasuma promised taking the futons out of the closet.
"I'm surprised that we were able to check in at this hour." Robin commented.
"I know, right? I'd be in bed sleeping hours ago if I worked here!" Dojima agreed, watching Karasuma drag the futons out into the middle of the room.
Karasuma sighed heavily. "Why is it that I'm the one doing all the work?"
"Sorry." Robin grabbed some sheets and began making up a bed.
"Aw, I'm too tired to move!" Dojima complained. Just then, a large thump came from the other room. Karasuma opened the door between the two rooms and glared at the guys. From what Robin could see into the room, Amon was lying on the floor with his back to the door and Michael and Sakaki were standing with looks of shock while holding their futons.
"What are you doing in there?" Karasuma demanded.
"I'm not sure ma'am." Sakaki answered. Karasuma rolled her eyes and re-shut the door muttering something about immature men.
The girls changed into their pj's and laid down to sleep. After a while Dojima whispered. "Robin, are you still awake?"
"Yes." Robin answered.
"I need to pee." Dojima whispered. "buddy system." So, the two girls headed out of their room in search of a bathroom.
The hallways were so dark that it was near impossible to see so they started feeling around for a bathroom door. "I think I found it." Robin said, hand on a doorknob. She opened the door and felt a rush of cold air. Dojima, not noticing this, shoved Robin and herself out. The door closed.
"Brr. This bathroom is freezing!" Dojima complained.
"That's because we're outside, look around." Robin said. She sighed and turned the handle to get back inside. It wouldn't open. "Dojima, I think it's locked!"
"What?! Let me try!" Dojima tried opening the door, it didn't budge. "Crap."
"How are we going to get back in?" A gust of cold wind blew.
"Who cares? I really have to pee!" Dojima bounced from one foot to the other.
Robin waited in front of a tree near the resort 'keeping watch', like anyone would be awake at two in the morning. "Well that was refreshing!" Dojima called, coming around to meet Robin. "Now how to get back in the building…"
"Maybe we should go over where the window is in our room and wake Karasuma up." Robin suggested.
"No way! Karasuma would yell at us." Dojima thought for a while. "But we should check to make sure she hasn't woken up. If she is awake, she'd think we're off being irresponsible teens and come after us."
They found their room and peered in, Karasuma was gone. "I hope she doesn't get locked out too." Robin said.
"I don't care, as long as she doesn't find us." Dojima started back towards the trees, motioning for Robin to follow.
"I don't see why she would be angry if we explained the situation." Robin said.
"That's because you're naïve." Dojima glanced around suspiciously. "Here, lets hide it this tree until I think of something." She started up the tree then looked back down at Robin. "Aren't you coming?"
"I really don't think I can climb that."
Dojima's eyes widened, suddenly they heard the sound of people coming closer. "Hurry up!" She grabbed Robin by the arms and hauled her into the tree. They leaned forward to hear who was down there.
"Man, that was a waste." That was…Sakaki's voice?! He appeared below them and leaned against the tree the girls were hiding in.
"I know, we snuck out for nothing!" And Michael too!
Dojima crept further out on the branch to get a better look. She slipped and Robin tumbled out of the tree after her. "Ow!"
"Who's the-Dojima, Robin?!" Michael exclaimed taking a step back in surprise. "What are you guys doing out here?!"
"Michael? I thought Sakaki was with you too." Dojima said. Robin pointed at the ground underneath the blond, there he was.
"You're sitting on me." Sakaki grumbled, his face ground into the earth.
"Oops, sorry." Dojima quickly got off of him. "Now, what are you two out here for?"
"Michael said he had heard about a haunted temple on the grounds and we went to check it out." Sakaki explained. "What are you doing out here, its not safe for girls to run around in the middle of the night."
Robin opened her mouth to answer but Dojima stopped her. "We accidentally got locked out that's all." Her face flushed at the thought that Robin was going to tell them that she had to pee in a bush.
"The doors are locked?" Michael asked. The girls nodded. "How do we get back inside then?"
"And that's not the worst of it." Dojima explained. "Karasuma's out looking for us."
"Uh-oh, if she finds us out here together she'll think we're being frivolous teens!" Sakaki exclaimed.
"I used the word 'irresponsible' but 'frivolous' works too."
"So, what do we do?" Michael asked. Robin still didn't seem to follow what was happening.
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(A few minutes ago)
Karasuma woke and rolled over to one side, why was it that it was impossible to get a good nights sleep in anyplace but home? She sat up and glance around the room. Dojima and Robin were nowhere to be found. "Dojima!" She growled. She knew that Robin would go off somewhere and do something stupid, but Dojima would and it would be so her to take someone with her.
She leapt up and opened the door to the guy's room. Sakaki and Michael were missing too! Now Karasuma knew something was up. Amon lay on the floor in the same spot as he was earlier, but now she spotted a few bottles of booze lying around him. They must have drugged him with beer!
Karasuma bent down and shook the man back into consciousness. "Wha…?" Amon muttered groggily.
"They're missing!" Karasuma hissed at him.
"Who?" Amon sat up rubbing his head and groaned.
"Everyone! The team!" Amon finally seemed to wake up as he scanned the room.
"Well that's not good."
No, it's not." Karasuma helped him to his feet. "If the chief ends up hearing about this I'm dead." Amon nodded and the headed out the building, bringing flashlights.
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"I have an idea!" Sakaki exclaimed. The others leaned closer to hear his plan. "The hot springs here are open air, right?" Michael nodded. "I was thinking that we could climb onto the roof and enter in through the hot springs!"
"That is-" Michael and Dojima started.
"-The dumbest idea I've ever heard." Michael finished.
"-An awesome plan!" Dojima finished. The two glared at each other.
Michael sighed. "I guess it can't hurt to try."
They climbed up onto the roof and started crawling single file towards where they thought the hot springs were. Still, Robin held a look of utter confusion.
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Karasuma and Amon checked around the area for a while. "Maybe they went back to the building…" She said mainly to herself. Amon wasn't much of a help, being hammered and all, and just sort of followed her around with a dazed expression on his face.
They came back to a door and tried it. "It's locked!"
For the first time in a while Amon spoke. "What? Let me try." Again the door wouldn't budge. "Yeah, it's locked."
"They must have realized that and tried another way in…" Karasuma thought out loud. "But how?"
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Finally, they group had made it to the hot springs. Now the issue was how they would get off the roof. Dojima solved that problem. "Oh stop being a pansy!" She shouted and pushed Sakaki off and into the water below.
"What the hell?!" Sakaki shouted, sputtering water out of his mouth.
"Now that you're down there, check the doors. If they are unlocked we'll come down too, but if they aren't we'll help you back up." Michael directed.
"Fine fine." Sakaki pulled himself out of the bath and headed towards the door. "I feel like a pervert." He muttered, yanking on the door. Locked.
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"Why do you want to get on the roof again?" Amon asked as Karasuma climbed on top of him to reach the roof.
"Think about it, the hot springs are open air. I'm sure one of them would get the idea in their head to try to sneak in that way." She answered, pulling her self onto the roof.
"Sounds like something Sakaki or Dojima would come up with." Amon agreed. "But I don't see why you're so worried about catching them. I can't picture any of them doing anything."
"Don't put anything past a teenager, I know what it's like. They better not be doing anything frivolous on my watch!" frivolous; point: Sakaki.
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"But why did I have to be the one to get wet?" Sakaki hissed, back on the roof again, now at the back of the line.
"Would you quit complaining already? I said sorry." Dojima called back, just in front of him.
"What'd you say?" Sakaki asked. "I can't hear what you're saying around your big a-"
"Michael, how much longer to the edge?" Robin asked, cutting Sakaki off.
Being in the lead, Michael scanned the area. "Not much farther…" Just then he saw the glare of a flashlight sweeping the area. "Uh-oh." He spotted Karasuma and Amon crawling on the roof, they were separated from them by an empty garden area. "Guys get down!" He whispered to the others behind him.
Quickly they slipped down the edge that faced away from their pursuers. They peeked over the ridge to spy. "What's Amon doing with her? We got him so drunk he couldn't stand!" Sakaki exclaimed while trying to keep himself up, being wet made it hard to keep from slipping.
"That's how you snuck by him!" Robin nodded. It was a pretty good plan, except that it hadn't worked all that well.
"That's a pretty evil plan." Dojima agreed.
"Sakaki was the one who came up with it." Michael said. "Wait, where is Sakaki?!" He and the girls looked down and saw that he had slipped right off the roof and into another little garden.
"What was that noise?" Karasuma's voice drifted over to the younger hunters.
"She's coming!" With a new sense of hurry, They grabbed Sakaki and rushed back into the woods.
"I swear I heard something." They heard her say. "Amon! Quit thumping around over there!"
"Whew! Sorry guys, that was a close one." Sakaki apologized. Dojima fell to her knees to catch her breath and Michael sat down too. For a while all was silent.
pitter patter. drops began to fall from the sky. "It's raining." Robin said, looking up to the sky.
"That's just great! Now we can't even sleep outside!" Dojima cried.
"The haunted temple!" Michael exclaimed. "We could stay the night there!" They stood up and hurried towards the temple.
It was a rundown old thing, no wonder people thought it was haunted. But the inside was nice and warm. There were no lights and it was hard to see. It would have to do, were else could they go? They crouched down against one of the walls and huddled together to get warm.
Something moved. "Did you see that?" Robin asked the others.
"No."
On the wall opposite them, it moved again. "Look, there it is again!"
"Robin, I don't see anything." Dojima said. "Quit trying to scare me!"
Something blue-ish maybe, it started moving to the left. "I'm serious look!" Robin pointed at it.
"I see it now." Michael squinted in the direction she had pointed. "Is it a person?" He called out. "Is any body there?"
The blue-ish thing turned to them and started towards them. The closer it came the more they could make out. It definitely was a person…but why did it have a blue glow?
"It's…A…Ghost!" Dojima screamed. She leapt up grabbed the nearest object, with happened to be a mini Buddha, and chucked it at the 'ghost'. She missed, but it stopped coming closer. That didn't stop Dojima, she grabbed more things and continued throwing them at it.
"Ah! For crying out loud! Quit it!" The 'ghost' cried, covering it's face.
"It talked!" Sakaki exclaimed.
"Well of course I talked!" It said. Dojima dropped the projectiles she held. It glared at her. "Why do you keep throwing those things at me?" She just stood there with her mouth hanging open. "You couldn't actually hit a ghost with something like that."
"S-so are you a ghost?" Michael asked.
It laughed. "Ha! You haven't seen a ghost before?" It floated towards them and bent down to Robin. "Why do you stay with these ignorant people?" It asked her.
She didn't seem fazed at all. "It really isn't every day you see a ghost." She said calmly.
"I suppose." It walked through them and the wall and disappeared.
"That was a ghost?" Michael asked.
"Yeah." Robin replied. "There are haunted houses all over Great Britain. I'm used to it."
Nobody asked anymore questions, Hey if there were witches why couldn't there be ghosts?
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Karasuma and Amon wearily dragged themselves to the rundown temple soaking wet. "Maybe we can dry off here." She mumbled. Amon muttered something unintelligible in agreement. They opened the doors and saw their hunters huddled up in the corner of the room, fast asleep.
Amon shrugged and laid down with them. Soon Karasuma followed suit, she could yell at them in the morning.