Kayoko took out a lockpick and inserted it into the door to Yuuka's apartment. She effortlessly unlocked the door, familiar with the motion.
These locks are even easier than the ones in Gehenna.
Opening the door, Kayoko stepped inside. The apartment was not big at all. It contained one main room connected to a hallway that led to the kitchen and other miscellaneous rooms. A bed was located in the main room with a nightstand next to it. Something on the nightstand caught Kayoko's eye.
Now what's this?
Kayoko walked over and picked it up. It was a strange cube-like object of some sort, but pieces were jutting out of it.
How does this thing work? If I twist it…
Kayoko's curiosity got the better of her, and she started playing with the puzzle cube. Every time she twisted it, pieces would bob in and out of the cube seemingly at random.
Heh. This is pretty cool. So she plays with this thing before going to bed?
Kayoko kept twisting and turning the cube, enjoying herself. Until a realization hit her.
Ah crap, I gotta put this thing back! Uh…
Kayoko observed the cube, but she had no memory of what the cube looked like before she picked it up, and she certainly didn't have a good enough memory to reverse all of her moves.
Tsk, better put it back then. Hopefully she won't notice that it's different.
Looking away from the cube, Kayoko opened her bag and pulled out a listening device. She looked at it and groaned.
Why does this thing have the Gehenna logo on it? Who designed this?
Scowling, Kayoko scanned the room trying to find any places she might be able to hide it in.
Plants? No plants. Behind that TV? Maybe in it. But I don't have time to disassemble that TV.
Kayoko looked at Yuuka's bed.
Maybe in there. No, that won't work, she'll discover it as soon as she washes the sheets. Damn, I think I'm gonna have to hide this in the wall after all.
Kayoko took out a knife from her bag and laid it on the nightstand next to the cube. Kayoko inched the bed away from the wall with a space just barely large enough to fit her arm in. Kayoko took the knife and jammed it into the wall. She laid her body weight on the knife to wedge it further in, then pushed down diagonally, forming a cut. She took out the knife and jammed the point into the endpoint of that cut and cut horizontally back. She made a third cut towards the first line, forming a triangle. When that was finished, she jammed the knife back into one of the cuts and wedged out the triangle, revealing a triangular-shaped hole.
Not ideal, but…
Kayoko placed the listening device inside the hole and turned the power on. She placed the piece of the wall that fell out back in and stood up. She took out another device from her bag, this time a headset, and put it over her ears.
"Test."
"Test," it echoed back, if a little muffled.
Sounds alright.
Through the phone in Kayoko's pocket, Aru's voice resonated through the room.
"Kayoko, are you there?"
"Yep. Just placed the bug, where's Yuuka now?"
"She's about to turn onto the street. Get out of there, now!"
"Got it."
Kayoko looked at the hole in the wall and cursed. It was going to pop out, sooner or later, revealing the device with the Gehenna logo on it and compromising the school.
Fucking Gehenna kids. I swear.
Kayoko looked through her bag to and took out a tube of putty filler. She rubbed that into the cracks, hoping that it would harden and prevent the hole from popping back out. She jumped back over the bed and started heaving it. With some effort, she got the bed back in place.
Kayoko did a last check to make sure she packed everything in her bag, then took out her phone from her pocket.
"Aru, can you see the apartment?"
"Yes."
"Do you think I can leave through the front door? I don't see any other exits here."
"Uh, maybe. The street's a little long so it might be difficult for her to notice that you're there."
"I'll take a chance, thanks."
Kayoko rushed off to the door and peeked outside. She didn't see anyone in her immediate vicinity, so she took one step out. She looked over the guard rails and down towards the street, looking for Yuuka. After searching for a few seconds, Kayoko found her, a little bit away from the building, but still pretty close. She wasn't looking up and was distracted by her phone instead.
I should be fine to lock it too.
Kayoko closed the door and put her hood over her head. She took out a lock pick and brought it to the doorknob.
I must look like some kind of house burglar right about now.
Familiar with the layout of the lock, Kayoko slid the lock back into the locked position.
With that last piece of evidence squared away, Kayoko was now comfortable leaving the building. She looked around for any exits but only found the one staircase she came up from.
Seriously? Only one exit? That's how people get burned alive when a fire starts.
Kayoko sighed and tightened her hood and began her descent.
At the same time, Yuuka reached the bottom of the staircase and started walking up.
At the halfway marker, Yuuka and Kayoko came into view of one another and locked eyes.
"Oh, hi! Do you live here too?" Yuuka said as she waved her down.
In a deeper voice than usual, Kayoko replied back with, "Hi. Sorry, I'm a little busy right now, but I'd like to chat later." Kayoko kept walking down the stairs and brushed past Yuuka.
"Oh, no worries. I just moved in. Uh, I'll see you later then!"
Yuuka started ascending the staircase.
It looks like she didn't recognize my halo. Maybe I'll actually get away with this.
Once Kayoko reached the bottom of the staircase, she took out her phone and brought it up to her ear.
"I'm all-clear now. Where are you?"
Kayoko, Aru, and Haruka reconvened on the street outside of Yuuka's apartment and started walking back towards Abydos High School. While walking back, Aru called Mutsuki to check where she was.
"Hello?" Mutsuki initiated over the phone line.
"The main school building is empty right now, so we're going in soon. Where are you?"
"Me? Don't worry about it. I'm not slacking off, just so you know! I'm placing bugs all over the place! Don't tell me you need me just to set up a scavenger hunt in their school."
"As long as you're fine. No, I don't think you need to be here then. Just keep doing, uh, whatever it is you're doing. We can handle this."
"Got it, boss."
Aru hung up. Turning to the other Problem Solvers, she tilted her head. "Mutsuki's doing her own thing right now. That's probably fine. The three of us should be able to cover the entire school in an hour, tops."
Kayoko looked up at the sky.
"You sure that's a good idea? Leaving Mutsuki unsupervised on the job again? We're in this mess because she pissed off the Prefect Team."
"Well, it's not like we can do anything to stop her."
"Out of sight, out of mind."
Arriving at the entrance to the school, the Problem Solvers checked their bags for their collection of listening devices. Everything looked in order. The three of them looked at each other and nodded.
They walked to the main entrance of Abydos and entered.
Orange sunlight fitting a desert sunset illuminated the sand covered hallways of Abydos. Wind could be heard buffeting against the walls of the buildings, echoing through the empty corridors.
"So this is what the inside of Abydos looks like," Haruka remarked.
"This is even shittier than Gehenna," Kayoko said. "I would hate cleaning this place up with five or six people."
"I can't believe we were fighting over this," Aru said. "Those Kaiser creeps are crazy."
"Talk about a joke. All they had to do was just walk inside," Kayoko said.
Aru examined the different directions the main entrance split up in.
"Still, this brings up good memories, doesn't it?"
"I wouldn't necessarily call them good."
"It's like we're visiting an old friend for the first time! So, where shall we start? I heard Abydos used to be quite the impressive school a long time ago!"
Aru's eyes lit up as if she was eager to go treasure hunting.
Kayoko narrowed her eyes into her signature neutral expression.
"We're here to do a job, remember? Let's start with planting the clean classrooms first, that's probably where all the action is anyways. Once we do that, we can keep going around the school."
Aru brushed her hair from her side to the back of the head.
"Excellent plan. This direction looks a lot cleaner than the other side, so let's look at that first. Come on Haruka!"
"Hold on, one second!"
Haruka was crouching down over a spot of sand covering a crack in the floor.
"What are you looking at?" Aru asked.
"This weed," Haruka answered.
Kayoko and Aru walked over to Haruka to look at what Haruka was inspecting. It was a grass-looking plant. It had ears of what looked like wheat that extended out from the steam, forming the shape of a flower.
"Oh, uh, yeah, it certainly looks like a weed," Aru said.
"This is a crow's foot grass. Named because this flower looking part kind of looks like a crow's foot," Haruka began explaining. "I've never seen one before in person because they only grow in Abydos."
Kayoko kneeled down beside Haruka and took a closer look at the grass.
"A native weed species huh? Guess anything can survive in a place like this."
Kayoko reached her hand out to touch some of the grains of the grass. The spikes on the end of the grains pricked her finger and embedded itself in her, causing her to yelp.
"Careful!" Haruka yelled. "Weeds are a lot spikier than most people expect!"
Kayoko pulled the grains out of her finger.
"Yup. It did not like to be touched."
"You have to be gentle when you handle a weed. You take it out from the roots."
Haruka dug down into the sand with her hands and picked up the grass. She held it in front of her head for a second.
"To think this survived here for so long. Aru, can I keep it?"
Haruka expectantly took a look at Aru with puppy dog eyes. Aru was slightly bewildered, but acquiesced.
"Uh, sure. Go ahead."
Haruka beamed and put the weed in her bag.
"Well girls, let's go. We've got a job to do."
Haruka stood up then quickly realized what just happened.
"Did I just waste everyone's time? I'm so sorry! I thought the weed was interesting, but I know not everyone thinks that way! It was only a weed, it was pretty boring for you guys."
"Hey, don't sweat it," Kayoko said to Haruka with a smile on her face. "We have all night to do this thing. We can relax a little. You looked like you were having fun."
Haruka pointed at herself.
"Me? But what about you? Weeds aren't exciting."
Aru smiled at Haruka.
"It's all about the presentation. We could listen to you talk about weeds all day."
"Really!?"
A wind blew through the hallways of Abydos, sending shivers up the girls' spines.
"Uh, maybe another day," Aru responded. "Let's get inside and plant some bugs, okay?"
"Yeah, good idea," Kayoko agreed.
The three girls headed into one of the classrooms to take shelter from the wind. They could still hear its echoes through the door, but were otherwise protected.
"Spooky," Haruka remarked.
"It's like a ghost," Aru shivered.
"Like a ghost…" Kayoko whispered to herself.
Turning towards the interior of the classroom, Aru pointed and smiled.
"Well girls, let's get to work!"
Aru, Haruka, and Kayoko began rummaging through the classroom trying to find a good spot to hide a bug.
"What does a good hiding spot look like?" Aru asked to nobody in particular.
Kayoko answered back. "Somewhere nobody would ever think to look. Inside a desk for example. We'd need a way to cover it up first."
Aru kept absent mindedly lifting up objects within arm's reach of her. "We need to be careful that we find a spot that can be as clear as possible while also being hidden. Hmm."
Haruka pulled back the chalkboard to reveal a hidden chamber behind it. Contained in that enclosement was a hodgepodge of knick-knacks that looked like junk. There were magazines from other schools, tokens and trophies, some with Abydos insignias on them, and others from the other schools in Kivotos. Haruka asked the room, "How about this place?"
Kayoko and Aru took a look at it. Kayoko nodded.
"Looks good. We can probably get away with just throwing the bug in and mixing it with the rest of this stuff, since it looks so similar. Oh, put it towards the middle where it won't be the first thing somebody sees if they open this door. Good job."
Haruka nodded.
Aru asked Kayoko, "Should we put more bugs in this room in case they find that one?"
Kayoko looked at her collection of listening devices. "I guess it wouldn't hurt? There's a bigger risk that they'll find a bug, but I have so many that we can probably just throw all of them in completely random spots. Uh, just be careful that whatever spot you pick is extremely hard to find."
Aru and Kayoko kept on looking for places to bug in the class room while Haruka climbed into the chalkboard chamber.
"Be careful…" she muttered to herself. Haruka placed her listening device on top of a pile of souvenirs. "Aru told me to be careful… So we need to make sure they don't ever find the bugs." Haruka looked into her bag and moved aside the crow's foot grass to reveal a collection of bombs. "They won't ever find these… Hehehe."
With a mischievous smile that would make Mutsuki's heart flutter, Haruka armed one of the explosives and placed it near the bug. Haruka then took out a panel with many buttons on it. She took out a roll of tape, ripped off a piece, and placed it on top of a button. She grabbed a marker and put a large '1' on the tape. She placed a hard cover over the panel so the buttons couldn't be accidentally pressed and put it back in her bag. Haruka crawled out of the chamber, satisfied with her handiwork.
Outside the classroom, a door opened up, pushing a gust of wind through the hallway, causing the hallway to wail.
Aru looked at the door and muttered, "This place is so run down. It's kind of creepy."
Kayoko smirked, sensing an opportunity to have some fun.
"Well, I suppose we are intruding on Abydos after all. Have you ever heard the story of 'the Ghost of Abydos?'"
Haruka looked at Kayoko with wide eyes. "G-ghost?"
Aru scoffed at the implication. "Oh come on, you can't believe ghosts are real, right?"
Kayoko raised one eyebrow. "Oh. Maybe in the rest of the world. But Abydos is special. It used to be one of the largest and greatest schools of all of Kivotos, but it was hit by all of these natural disasters and crumbled practically overnight. Doesn't it raise a few questions?"
Aru narrowed her eyes at Kayoko.
"Where are you going with this?"
Kayoko looked outside the classroom window. The sky was a deep orange, and the sun was barely over the horizon.
"First, we should probably bug another classroom. Let's go."
The three of them exited the classroom and entered the hall, where the wind only got even stronger, blowing sand into them.
Haruka accidentally breathed through her mouth and had to spit it out.
"Yuck!"
"So much sand!" Aru commented.
Kayoko opened a door and beckoned the others to come inside. When they all made it through, she closed the door, sealing the room off from the sandstorm outside. The three of them promptly got to work bugging the room.
"So the Ghost," Kayoko continued. "Once upon a time, during the heyday of Abydos, there was a girl who attended the school. Let's call her Ishizumi. She was sweet and kind, but easily pushed over. Her 'friends,' if you could call it that, only hung out with her because of how average she was. Ishizumi was an otherwise perfectly normal girl."
Aru and Haruka were staring at Kayoko, seemingly captivated by the story.
Aru closed her eyes and smirked.
"I think I can guess where this story's going."
While shifting through junk piles, Kayoko stumbled across a box containing a peculiar group of posters. One of them stuck out to her; plastered prominently were the words "Come visit the wonder of Abydos! The beach away from the beach, the Abydos Oasis!" Kayoko picked one of them up and quickly skimmed over the details of the accompanying background image: a perfectly photographed picture of girls playing or relaxing on what looked like an idyllic beach.
Kayoko set the poster down on a table and continued.
"The year she was set to graduate, Ishizumi and her classmates went on a field trip to this massive oasis in the middle of the desert. The desert air was hot, but the water was cool, and a sprawling tourism village was set up just around it to provide entertainment. Ishizumi and her friends were very curious, so they snuck out of town to explore the surrounding area.
"When they got a couple minutes away from the town, a sandstorm raged out of nowhere and covered everything. Normally in a sandstorm, you wait it out so you don't get lost, but Ishizumi and her friends panicked and tried to run back to the town. They never found it.
"It was very hot out, and they started running low on water. The sun was beating them down. But like an oasis, they found a hole in the ground that opened up. They stumbled on a cave and went inside. Because who wouldn't want to go inside a cave? It was nice, damp, and cooler than outside. They heard running water coming from inside too.
"Everybody was beginning to lose hope that they would make it out alive. But Ishizumi was optimistic. She said, 'This cave is a miracle! It's not hot, and we have water! We can stay here until the night comes!' So they did.
"When the sun outside started to set, the girls went deeper into the cave to refill their water. The cave was unlit, and it was easy to trip. They refilled their water from the underground reservoir and started coming back out. But on the way back, a cave-in happened, breaking the only path back out. The rubble could be climbed, but Ishizumi broke her leg and couldn't get out.
"She gave her food and water to her friends so they could make the trip back and get help for her. There was plenty of water in the cave after all, and the body can survive weeks without food, so there was no problem there.
"Her friends left the cave to go get help. Ishizumi stayed behind and slept through the night, protected by the cavern and soothed by the sound of running water.
"The sun rises. Ishizumi wakes up, the pain in her leg growing stronger. Still, she bites through the pain, seeing the light of rescue on the horizon.
"But as the hours passed, no living thing, human or animal, entered the cave. One day passed, and Ishizumi was still trapped there.
"The next day, Ishizumi woke up, and the pain in her leg was even greater. 'Where are they?' she thought. It didn't take them an entire day to find this cave, so they surely must have made it back to civilization and gotten help by now, right?
"A morbid thought crossed her mind. What if they never made it back? They got lost on the way here, so naturally they would be lost on the way back. If that was true… then she's on her own.
Aru was fully committed to this story now.
"That's awful! She must have spent days scared and alone!"
Kayoko said, "Yup. The Abydos Desert is something that you can never be too prepared for. It's freakishly hot in the day, and freezing cold at night. She was lucky to survive one day there."
While listening to this story, Haruka planted another listening device in a corner in the room and rigged it to explode, the same way she did the first one. Once she finished, she looked back at Kayoko without saying anything, as if she wanted to say, 'Is there more to the story?'
Kayoko scratched her chin, trying to get her thoughts straight. There needed to be an ending to the story.
"Um," she continued, "-so Ishizumi was on her own and in a lot of pain. She knew that if she didn't do something, anything, she'd be dead in days, hours even. So she thought quickly on what to-"
CRASH
"Eep!" Aru shrieked.
The wind outside the room they were in picked up, some of the air leaking through under the door and making its way in. That crash sounded like it came from the room on the other side of the hallway. Kayoko instinctively drew her pistol and disengaged the safety.
She opened the door and looked out in the hallway. The door on the other side was open.
Was that always open? Kayoko thought to herself.
Kayoko took a step outside the room and into the hallway when she heard footsteps coming from her right. She looked in that direction but didn't see anything immediately. Kayoko started running in the hallway towards the direction she thought she heard the footsteps in, pistol facing forwards and ready to shoot as soon as possible. She rounded the corner with pistol raised, but only saw a closed door. She opened the door to reveal the Abydos courtyard. Kayoko peeked outside to confirm there was nothing there, but she saw nothing but grass and sand everywhere.
She sighed and muttered under her breath, "What the hell was that?"
Aru and Haruka soon caught up with Kayoko.
"Kayoko, did you see something?" Aru asked.
Kayoko shook her head.
"Nope. Must have been the wind."
Haruka asked the group, "Do you think it was the ghost?"
Aru tried to reply, "What? The Ghost of Abydos? O-of course not! Ghosts don't exist, after all! And say, even if they did, which they probably don't, the three of us would be able to shoot it wide… open?"
Aru crossed her arms and attempted to smile, but her lips were quivering. "Failing that, I doubt the ghost would be able to catch up to us if we ran away! We have legs, they don't! Right, Kayoko?"
Kayoko furrowed her brows, still confused about what that was. "Well, it's just a story. There's no way it's a real ghost," she said to try to reassure herself.
"I'm sure we can fight and beat a ghost!" Haruka shouted. "But if we can't, I'll gladly sacrifice myself so both of you can escape! So don't be scared!"
Aru slightly grimaced.
"No, I don't think that will be necessary."
Kayoko sighed again.
"Whatever. We still need to go back. We've only bugged two classrooms. They probably use three at the very least, one for each year."
Reluctantly, the three of them walked back inside the main building to continue their mission.
"You'll finish the story right?" Haruka asked Kayoko. "I want to hear the end."
"Huh? Oh, right. Where were we? Ishizumi was trapped and alone, and help wasn't coming for her. Right."
"You know, we don't need to hear the rest of the story. It might distract us from the mission!" Aru said.
Kayoko poked Aru on the shoulder.
"Aw, come on! When nerves are high, having a little fun can help calm you down!"
"This is a mission. We're not supposed to have fun. I'm not having fun."
"Well, it looks like Haruka really wants to hear more, isn't that right?"
Haruka nodded her head.
"Please, can we let Kayoko finish the story?"
"Erk, alright," Aru said.
The Problem Solvers entered the classroom with the open door from before and closed it behind them. While Aru and Haruka bugged the classroom, Kayoko continued on with the story.
"Ishizumi drank as much water as she could from the stream then went back to the rock wall. She had to climb it to get back out. Her left leg was bent and could not be used, and the slightest irritation would cause her immense pain. She started climbing the rocks with her hands and her right leg. But despite her trying to climb in such a way that all her weight would be on her right, her left leg would flop around and hit the rock wall. Crack. Crack. Crack."
Aru winced at this description and told Kayoko, "Okay, we get it! It hurt a lot!"
Kayoko smirked and continued on.
"It was unbearably painful, but Ishizumi knew that it was either this, or death. So she grit her teeth and climbed up. And she certainly climbed. She made her way up to the exit of the cave and towards the outside world. It was around morning, and she knew she had to leave now before it got too hot.
"Every step she took was painful, but she used her rifle to help her walk. When she got out of the cave, she looked around to find any sort of landmark to help her.
"Actually, what she saw was the Abydos Oasis town! It was way off in the distance, but it was unmistakably her ticket out of there.
"This should have made her happy. Relief that rescue was right there. And for a second, it did. But where was her rescue? It was right there! There was no way her friends couldn't have seen it.
"She pushed those thoughts out of her head. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting to safety. So she walked towards the oasis in the middle of the desert."
"And she walked and she walked and she walked. Every step took minutes. The sun was high in the sky, and now she didn't have the protection of the shadows. The air grew hot and waves appeared over the sand. But Ishizumi didn't care. She couldn't afford to.
"And she walked. And she walked. And she walked. The town was right there! Surely, somebody would notice her. She was the only feature in the entire desert.
"And she walked. And walked. She nearly made it to the town. To the entrance. She thought she saw her school bus and people waiting for her and a rescue team hard at work. Generous vendors from the town with food and water, wanting to see the joy on a missing student's face.
"And she walked. Until she couldn't anymore. She was right there! Right there! But her legs finally gave up on her and she fell face first into the sand. Yet, she never gave up. She kept crawling through the blistering hot sand, trying to get to safety. The only thing that mattered was getting back home safe.
"She barely had any energy left, but she raised her head, expecting to see help rushing towards her. To see the safety of the oasis. And, in fact, she did see the oasis.
"But the oasis was still so very far away. Ishizumi stumbled upon a mirage. Her celebrations were cut short. And to rub sand in her wounds, she could hear the music from the oasis a mile away.
"Can you believe it? The people of the Great Abydos Oasis were partying without her, as if nothing was wrong! There was no tension in the air, no urgency at all.
"'How?' she thought. With all of the precautions she gave her friends, they should have been able to make it back to the oasis and signaled for help. So why was nobody trying to help her?
"Ishizumi stopped crawling. There was only one explanation. Her friends left her to die. They didn't call for help. They made it back to the oasis with no problems at all. And instead of taking the little effort to inform somebody, anybody, that there was somebody in need of help, they ignored it and went back to living their lives.
"No. There was one other explanation. Maybe the people of Abydos just didn't care about her? Maybe her friends made it back, maybe they didn't. What should have happened after one day is that somebody should have noticed that Ishizumi was gone. But they didn't.
"Maybe they sent out a rescue team the first night. But once they couldn't find her, they just gave up and resumed partying without a care in the world.
"Ishizumi's heart broke. She learned the harsh truth that she couldn't trust anyone. That she only existed for the convenience of others.
"At this point, Ishizumi was severely dehydrated. But she still tried to cry. But her eyes remained dry.
"Her halo started flickering. 'This is it' she said to herself. She accepted what was going to happen to her. There was nothing that could stop it from happening. But before she went to sleep and turned off her halo for the last time, she cursed Abydos.
"'Just like you've abandoned me when I needed it the most, the world will abandon you when you need it the most! If Abydos can't help those in need, let it be destroyed!'
"Ishizumi's curse now fell on Abydos. Her ghost lingered on as the Ghost of Abydos, and it's said that she caused the sandstorms that ruined what used to be the greatest academy in Kivotos. Every sandstorm that has happened here ever since then is a result of her."
Haruka finished planting a listening device and, once again, overprepared and rigged it with a bomb. She took a seat and sat down, joining Aru in taking in Kayoko's story. When Kayoko finished, both of them just sat there in silence.
Kayoko scratched the back of her head, unsure of what those two were thinking.
Damn, she thought. That curse sounded pretty lame, now that I think about it.
Suddenly, a screeching sound came from upstairs, followed by loud thumps and crashes that shook the ceiling.
"This again!" Kayoko drew her pistol and rushed outside, with Aru and Haruka trailing her. The three of them found a staircase and rushed to the top. There, they found another open classroom.
Peeking inside, the classroom was in pristine condition and free of dust or sand, but several desks were toppled over. Kayoko thought she saw the silhouette of a girl through the window, but the setting sun obscured her vision.
"Isn't this the room that was right over us?" Aru asked.
"What the hell was that?" Kayoko asked.
The three walked inside the room, guns locked and loaded. They searched each corner and knocked over more desks, looking for the culprit. Haruka noticed that the window was open and looked out. It was a steep four story drop to the ground, but otherwise, there was nothing there.
"Fuck," Kayoko muttered. "There's somebody here. There HAS to be somebody here. I know I saw somebody!"
"I hear something coming from over there!" Aru shouted.
Aru bolted off towards the end of the hallway, and Kayoko and Haruka followed right behind her. Aru opened the door and revealed the rooftop of Abydos High School. They cautiously stepped outside and into the middle of the roof.
They used their vantage point to look all around the school grounds to find any suspicious individuals, but they could not spot anything on the ground.
Out of nowhere, a huge gust of wind came and blew the roof door shut. The three girls had to close their eyes to keep the sand out.
When the wind died down, they opened their eyes again. They heard a loud yawn come from above them, and they each looked up.
"Oh, hey guys, what's up?"
Hoshino's voice came from above. She was sitting on a ledge overlooking the Problem Solvers. Her body was nothing but a black shadow silhouetted against the orange sun.
"That's Hoshino!" Kayoko said to Aru and Haruka. "Remember what Hina told us about her."
"Oh? People are talking about me? Wow, I must be really famous now," Hoshino responded, hearing what Kayoko said.
Kayoko and Haruka kept their hands on their weapons. Aru tried to talk out of this awkward situation.
"Oh, don't mind us! We just wanted to take a closer look at your school, that's all! You know, we've been growing closer, and then I realized that, 'Hey, we've never actually been inside Abydos!' So, uh… After that ramen last night! Yes, after ramen, I figured since we're already in the area, we might as well visit the next day! But we didn't want to bother you guys while you were still in school, so we forgot to ask you. Um… Uh…"
Kayoko quickly interjected. "We have to leave on business tomorrow, so we thought, might as well just knock on the doors and see what happens. But the doors were unlocked, so we just walked in."
"Oh really?" Hoshino yawned. "You could have just pinged me on Momo Talk. Hey, why don't we add each other? We keep running into each other after all. My tag's Hoshino. Come on, you can all add me, I don't mind."
The three Gehenna girls cautiously reached for their phones and pulled up Momo Talk. They each added Hoshino as a friend.
"Ah, there we go," Hoshino said, accepting each friend request as they came in. "As you can probably tell, I was taking a fat nap up here on the rooftop."
"A nap?" Haruka asked. "It's so windy and… sandy."
Hoshino shrugged. "Ahah. You're definitely not Abydos students. You get used to it after a while."
Hoshino stretched.
"Anyways, you should have let me know you wanted to visit! I could have given you a tour of the school! I know all of the history and…"
Hoshino jumped down from her ledge.
"...all of the hiding spots too."
The three Gehenna girls reached for their guns again. Hoshino pretended not to notice and clarified, "Sometimes my juniors try to bug me to join them for meetings or whatever, but sometimes I'm just really, really, sleepy. So I take naps all over the place where they can't find me. Heheheh. I'm such an irresponsible uncle, aren't I?"
Aru, Haruka, and Kayoko were still on edge. Hoshino raised one eyebrow as if confused then sighed.
"Oh well," she said. Hoshino turned to Kayoko and addressed her. "Kayoko, right? You're a pretty good story teller, let me tell you that. The Ghost of Abydos? Yeah, that's a classic around here."
Kayoko released the safety on her pistol and narrowed her eyes. "Huh?" she asked. "Actually, I made all of that up on the spot."
Hoshino chuckled and smiled at Kayoko. "Really? I thought you must have heard it from somewhere. Actually, we do have a story that's just like that. I mean sure, you got a few details wrong here and there, but, I'm pretty confident something like that did happen a long time ago."
Aru asked Hoshino bluntly, "Were you listening in on us?"
Hoshino smiled and scratched her cheek. "Ah well, you know…"
Aru tried to laugh it off. "Aha! So all those noises we heard were you! Oh thank goodness, we thought it might have been a ghost! But you know, ghosts aren't real. Hahaha…"
"Oh really?" Hoshino said. "Hmmm… Okay. I've decided." Hoshino winked at them. "Let me let you in on a little Abydos secret."
Hoshino raised her shotgun and pumped the charging handle back, expelling a shotgun shell. Hoshino then grabbed it out of the air. She dropped the smile and glared at the group, all indications of her friendly demeanor instantly disappearing.
"The Ghost of Abydos is real."