A yūrei is a ghost in Japanese culture, often characterized by white clothing and lack of feet: goryō are vengeful-if-not-always malignant ghosts of the aristocratic class, and onryō are vengeful ghosts that come back to right a wrong done to them in their lifetime. Hearkening back to one of my earlier prompts, Sadako from The Ring franchise is an onryō. Rena is a kitsune, which I shouldn't have to explain to anime fans, and her hoshi no tama is a round white ball or jewel that all kitsune are said to possess, carried either in their mouth or on their tail, which contains all or a portion of their power/soul. Rika is a tengu, a mountain spirit with contrasting protective and demonic alignments, depending on the era. Tengu are frequently portrayed with bird-like features, such as a large nose (similar to a bill) and wings. To the best of my knowledge, a mononoke is a general term for an unspecified type of mischievous yōkai.

June 20th, 2022

"Hey." Keiichi said, looking up at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head. "You ever think that there might be something…out there?"

"Out where?" Mion asked, looking back from her locker, where she was putting away the club's games for the day.

"Just…out there in general, I guess." Keiichi said. "You know, like yōkai and stuff."

A guilty silence fell across the classroom, though Keiichi was the only one that didn't notice it.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha. Oh, Kei-chan, you're so silly." Mion said, sweating as she tried to remember whether or not she had done something overt recently. Had Shion forgot to put on her fake feet again? Aw, crap, Mion knew she was going to be the one that exposed them all! I mean, really, how could a yūrei not give herself away?! Ghosts weren't exactly subtle!

No, Mion absolutely wasn't being a hypocrite about that. She was a goryō, not an onryō. She was an honorable spirit, damnit, not a vengeful one, and she always remembered to put on those false feet so that people couldn't tell she was floating above the ground!

"Mi-chan's right, Keiichi-kun." Rena agreed with a placid smile. Mion cast her a sour look over Keiichi's leaning body: as a kitsune, Rena could shapeshift and hide her telltale features, whereas Mion and Shion had to rely on prosthetics and blind luck. Rena's smile softened into something vaguely apologetic, and she stood along with the others, Keiichi swaying up with a groan, as they moved to finish cleaning up the classroom.

"Hey, Keiichi-kun, can you help me with this?" Mion asked, and he moved over to the locker with her as she held it open. "I can't stack these on my own."

He grabbed the colored boxes she handed to him and started wedging them carefully back into the locker as Mion gave a sigh of relief. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Satoko and Rika were both glaring at Rena as she moved to stack chairs, with Hanyuu dutifully doing the same behind her. Satoko gave a desk a spiteful bump, it slid into Rena, and Rena yelped as her hoshi no tama was knocked loose, the magic glowing pearl bouncing merrily across the desks as it bathed the classroom in gentle radiance and Rena immediately sprouted fox ears and a tail.

"Ack!"

"Hey!"

The four girls stared after the magical gem in consternation before immediately lunging after it as scuffling noises rattled through the classroom. Rena tried to slam her hand down on it, but that just flipped the lightweight desktop upwards as the pearl was sent flying towards the ceiling, skimming over Hanyuu's fingers as she leaped and grasped for it.

Keiichi looked up as the glow swung across the room.

"Hey, is it bright in here all of a sudden, or is that just me?" he asked as sweat poured down Mion's spine, watching Satoko and Rika leap and dance one after another, the magic pearl catching their fingers at just the wrong times as it was launched up into the air again by the force of their swiping hands. At last, just as Keiichi dusted his hands and stood, Rena managed to snatch the glowing white ball out of the air, and stuffed it back into her mouth as he turned.

"Mmm?" Rena asked through tightly-closed lips as Keiichi stared at her conspicuously-normal and totally-human figure, her cheeks bulging. Keiichi scratched his head.

"I could've sworn it was brighter in here a second ago." he said, puzzled.

"Heat-flare, probably." Satoko told him, clutching a desk and gasping with relief. "The sun does weird stuff out here."

"Light-flare, you mean." Rika corrected her, as Hanyuu picked herself up from where she had landed on the floor after she'd tried to snatch the ball.

"Oh, whatever."

Keiichi blinked, then shrugged and turned back to the locker as Mion breathed a sigh of relief, wiping her wrist across her brow. They managed to clean up the rest of the classroom without incident, stacking all the chairs and tidying up the strewn-out desks, picking up their satchels and heading out the door. Keiichi had more supplies to stuff into his, so he lagged behind as Mion and the others sauntered out, Mion hurrying forward to slip her shoes onto her fake feet as Rena moved to stand as a convenient shield.

"What a day, nipah." Rika yawned as she and Satoko waited several meters away, giving a luxuriant stretch –as her wings extended out from her back, pushing from beneath her long blue hair and trembling as she stretched them to their fullest. "Mmm, so sore."

"Hey guys, did you see-"

Rika froze mid-stretch as Keiichi's footsteps approached the classroom door, hurriedly clasping her wings back in and trying to smooth her hair over them. In her panic, though, she missed several spots, and she and Satoko looked frantically about before Satoko finally looked down at her bookbag and lunged forward,

Keiichi stepped out of the classroom to see Satoko and Rika standing in the middle of the hall as Hanyuu flustered nervously nearby, Satoko with both hands firmly shoved against Rika's back, Satoko's school satchel dangling down over Rika's hair, both caught mid-struggle with expressions of guilt.

"What's wrong with you two?" he asked blankly. Rika and Satoko exchanged frantic glances.

"We're doing this because, uh…"

"Rika's back hurt!" Satoko blurted. "S-so I'm giving her a backrub!"

"Y-yeah." Rika agreed, giving a shaky smile and then mimicking a pained expression. "Mew! My poor ouchy back! Satoko's backrubs are so nice!"

"Okay…" Keiichi said after a second, and shrugged again, walking past them. Rika and Satoko both sighed in relief, waiting until he was in the door bay with the other two before hastily finishing smoothing Rika's hair back over her identically-colored feathers as Satoko dropped her satchel back to the ground. She was just happy that unlike Mion, who had to stammer and then force a laugh as she made fun of Keiichi for believing in her "prop" that one time her fake foot had dropped to the ground, and Rena, whose shapeshifting relied on a jewel she was liable to drop, or Rika –who just had to hide her wings under her hair and hope for the best– Satoko was just a mononoke, a mischievous spirit that had absolutely nothing to hide except on festival days.

Hanyuu, of course, had her oni horns, but she could and did get away with claiming them as charm points, and thus, the illusion for poor Keiichi –that he was not, in fact, the only human in their group– was maintained.

Somehow…

8.56 AM, USA Central Time

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