10391 Part 2: Hawke in Heavenly Host
By Ghrathryn
She had been expecting trouble since Saki had alerted her to the new person. That said trouble was a young woman that looked to be just over five foot tall running straight at the group from a side corridor with a taller boy coming after her wasn't what she had been expecting.
A taller boy she recognised from seeing Sally playing the game as one Yuuya Kizami, a budding or budded sociopath that did murder several people in Heavenly Host and it looked like he was after another one now.
Moving quickly, Nicki caught the girl as she passed, spun and tossed her at Satoshi, who went down with a grunt under her. As Nicki continued her spin, she caught the knife hand of the boy with dark hair. A quick blow to the elbow caused it to snap like a dry twig, forcibly removing his ability to grip.
Catching the knife, she reversed it and rammed it back into his chest, killing him quickly.
Catching the corpse, she lay it down and sighed, removing the knife with a slight tearing sound before cleaning it on a rag. "Damn…" she sighed. "I was really hoping not to have to kill anyone. I'd forgotten that even discounting the darkening, there are people that are killers in here."
Sighing again, she closed the boy's eyes before having her crew gather his body the way they were the other corpses. Bagging and tagging it for return to his family as she went to check on the girl he had been chasing.
"There are possibly others that can only be killed, Daughter of Oceans," Saki commented as she got close. "While I hope this is the only one before the Queen, I also hope you will save lives, even if it means taking others. Too long, I spent vengeful and darkened myself, thus I harmed those that I should have helped."
Nicki nodded, crouching near the girl. "Hey there," she said gently. "I'm sorry you had to see that, particularly if he used to be a friend." Seeing the girl shiver and whimper, clutching at a pair of scissors, she sighed, moving slowly to give her a gentle hug. "Hey, we'll get you out of here, alright?"
Feeling the girl shivering in her arms as the others moved around them, Nicki shifted, picking her up in a bridal carry. "Naomi, Seiko, how much blessed water do you have left?"
"Maybe one more splash…" replied Seiko. "My throat hurts if I talk too much or too loud and I needed to get people's attention."
Naomi frowned. "Um… I think I'm about the same, I used a fair amount rescuing Mayu."
Nicki nodded. "Okay, Satoshi, Kokuhaku – I really need to work on my Japanese otherwise I'm going to dislocate my jaw saying that – can you two stick with Miss Green here?" She looked at Saki. "Saki, do you want to remain out or would you rather go back aboard?"
"I will remain," Saki replied.
"'Koku' will work, and that will be fine." Kokuhaku responded.
Nicki nodded, gently dropping the girl's feet and guiding her to the pair.
Yuki watched the other girl trying to climb the barrier on the covered passage through her one working eye. The school, and Sachiko, wanted her to kill someone, anyone, but with that woman around….
None of them had managed in the girls' toilet, when that girl had spanked Sachiko and punched Yoshikazu so hard he had been reduced to a blood smear. She hadn't even known that it was possible for a human to do that. Even she, a ghost, didn't have that strength.
Then there had been that Mayu girl. The girl from the bathroom had appeared out of nowhere. On the good side, that girl had stopped the other girl from trying to give Yoshikazu's doll to her, on the bad; both she and Tokiko had been splashed with water that burned.
As if that weren't enough, Tokiko had returned to their hideaway not long after, smoking from another encounter with the same water when she had tried to get those four living in this very corridor.
She grimaced, feeling a shove in her mind, reminding her that this girl had both eyes and her tongue, that she lived, had parents and… Wincing, Yuki rubbed her head. Why was the school… was Sachiko so insistent?
Approaching the girl, she shifted the scissors. "Gihh it back… Gihh it back…" she moaned. Would she be able to catch this girl without being burned by that water? "GIHH IT BACK!"
The girl with the pink ribbon was too slow; she almost tumbled over the railing before Yuki managed to catch her. Perfect. She could take this girl's eye and…
As she raised her scissors to plunge them into the girl's eye, a hand clamped down on her wrist. Turning her head, she looked up into the eyes of the woman that constantly stopped them. Eyes that held more disappointment than anger… eyes so much like her mother's when they fought before her death. "Ease… gihh it back…" without meaning, her voice came out a whine.
The scissors were removed from her grip, not that she fought it. Even the grip the woman had, she could feel far more than human strength. "I told you kids before, no attacking people with scissors, knives or anything else," the woman said.
Yuki swallowed, and yelped as she was picked up, her panties stripped from her hips and her skirt hiked up as she was laid over the woman's knee. Bracing herself, she whimpered, hoping that the pain wouldn't be too much.
There wasn't a breeze in Heavenly Host, not that it would have affected her anyway, but she felt the one generated by the hand that struck her butt and yelped as hot pain burned across it, the crack of flesh against flesh sounding in her ears. The hand lifted and struck again, making her yelp a second, then a third time as the action was repeated.
By the time the woman was done, counting up twenty smacks, Yuki could feel tears and snot running down her face from her working eye and nose. Her butt felt like it was on fire, and humiliation burned bright within her. She hadn't even struggled, though this woman's strength….
Sniffling and sobbing, she didn't realise at first that her position had shifted until she felt heat far beyond a normal fire against her side. Heat she hadn't felt since she died.
"Yuki…" The name made her freeze, tears leaking from her eye. "I don't know how much you're being forced, but you can't keep this up. The people that come here, they don't know your story. They don't know about how Sachiko and your teacher kidnapped you, or how Sachiko pulped your eye and cut out your tongue. Killing them won't bring you rest; it won't give you your eye back. This…" She felt the woman's fingers trace the blood and muck dried along her left cheek. "This is what's left of your eye. It won't return, not until you find peace, and no one will find your tongue unless they have time to learn about it."
Yuki sniffed, blinking her eye clear to look at the woman, meeting her blue eyes. "Canh'… need… eyeh… Hhahhihho…" she sniffled, only to feel cloth wipe her cheek dry before being pressed to her nose. In spite of herself, she blew her nose into what was probably a handkerchief. She blinked, and then blinked again, finding the purple-grey haze around her remaining vision faded for the first time in ages. "Hhahhihho anh shhool… khill…"
"Why though?" asked the still living girl, drawing Yuki's attention. The still living girl eeped freezing up until the woman covered Yuki's eye with her hand. She still didn't get that, the humans… they were paralysed by her stare, the woman, she just ignored it completely. "I-I mean… why-why do you kill everyone? Couldn't… couldn't we be friends?"
"Yuka, you don't know much about spirits, but believe me, there are those that get stuck on a grudge and the only way to deal with them is to forcibly boot them into the afterlife," the woman said with the kind of certainty that suggested she had done just that in the past.
Yuki swallowed hard at the statement. "Hhon' know…" she responded, "Wanhh hhongue anh eyeh bah." She shrugged her shoulders, leaning against the heat, "Ahhihho wanhh… hhill. Ikes ihh." She paused, grimacing, "Donhh wanhh han'ed ahain… wanhh mommy bah."
"Murder victim," the woman said softly. "Combine that with a curse and an obsession… it likely didn't take long before Sachiko simply enjoyed killing. Add in that her own body was mutilated and she's probably lost humanity, she's been dead much longer than she's been alive. There's a lot of that type where I come from… things I've fought."
Reaching 1A, after a stop by the toilets in the other building to collect five bodies and allow Yuka to finally go, which had resulted in an attack by Sachiko herself and subsequent punishment by Nicki.
Nicki looked around as the eight in her group filed in. Moments after they entered the girl in the green skirt, Tohko, yelled and ran to hug a group that looked like they were from her school given that the girls wore the same white top and green skirt uniform while the boys had the same type of blazer as Yuuya had.
"I didn't expect there to be so many here," Saki commented softly.
"Satoshi-kun, Yuka-chan, Naomi-chan!" a fairly boisterous voiced called as Nicki nodded. Looking over, she spotted a ginger (or more like orange) haired girl with two short side tails similar to the style Nanoha wore in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha anime. The girl seemed to be talking a dozen miles a minute, as if she knew the three, even though they looked more confused than anything.
"What are you doing here?" the question brought both girls' heads around to face a girl with long black hair. "Didn't you cause enough trouble at our old school?"
Saki cocked her head at the girl. "Weren't you dead as well, Mayuri Yoshimura," she said. "I do remember killing you, yet you feel alive."
"You two know one another I take it," Nicki commented, breaking into the conversation before it could become an argument.
Saki nodded. "We went to the same school. Mayuri was either the only one or one of every few that survived my powers going rogue and my being beaten to death. When I was summoned in this place, she was one of those here. Her holy water hurts as much as yours seems to, though I do admit, I was very much a wraith at the time." She looked over at Mayuri thoughtfully. "Granted, I am not supposed to be here either, I remember Sachiko ending my existence, and yet I am here."
"You're not going to just believe her, are you?" Mayuri asked incredulously. "She's a murderer; she even admitted it just now. She caused the windows in my class to explode hurting quite a few of us."
"After how much bullying?" asked Nicki, drawing Mayuri up short. "If she, as you said, caused the windows to explode, particularly without anything that could affect them, then she has abilities, which may well have followed through her death. Abilities like that can go out of control, particularly if the person that has them is under duress, so how long was Saki a target for bullies?"
Saki shifted, grimacing. "Most of my life that I can remember," she admitted. "My powers made a lot of people dislike me and others were drawn to pick on the shy, quiet girl."
Nicki nodded, slipping an arm around Saki to hug her. "Your class was probably lucky she didn't have something like pyro kinesis. Flying glass would do more than enough damage without uncontrolled fires or other things."
Giving Saki a gentle squeeze, Nicki looked Mayuri in the eye. "It's entirely likely that there's plenty of blame to go around for the incident you hate Saki for, and maybe that hate is justified, but remember others killed her and many that die by violence, particularly those unable to fight back, can become vengeful spirits, as Heavenly Host and Saki prove." She shifted and shook her head. "There are things out there that make even the most vengeful spirit you're likely to meet look friendly though and right this minute there's a lot of potential issues right in this dimension that need dealing with, many here in this room actually."
Getting a short nod from Mayuri, Nicki made her way to the podium at the front of the room, moving to stand behind it. "ATTEN-HUP!" she called, grabbing everyone's attention and silencing them. "I must admit, I'm surprised at how many people there are here. Or probably more accurately, how many living people are here. For those of you who don't know, this is Heavenly Host Elementary, or a facsimile of it. There might be multiple ways in, the one I know of is the Sachiko Ever After ritual and for those that did it, check right now that you have the piece of the doll you used to get here, then put it somewhere on your person that you're not going to lose it. It got you in, it can get you out."
Nicki waited as practically everyone in the room checked their charm and hid them away. "Secondly, the reason this place exists. I don't know the full story, but there's something called 'Queen' behind some of it. The rest, a young girl named Sachiko Shinozaki saw her mother killed or die from an accident, once again, I'm not sure on the full details, but in either case the principal of the school, this school, is responsible for attempting to force a sexual encounter with Sachiko's mother who was the school nurse, something that led to her flight and death. Sachiko witnessed this and fled, only to be found and murdered right in front of her mother's corpse." Predictably several people gasped or screamed at the information.
"This was about a year after the school was built. Twenty years later, Sachiko found a route back to the mortal world and was responsible for corrupting her killer's son into kidnapping three or more children from the school, children she then murdered herself and pinned the blame on him." Once again, Nicki paused for a moment as people reacted with shock or horror. "Sachiko, the three kids and likely the teacher are wandering this school. The kids can paralyse you if you catch their eyes, so don't look there and if you encounter them, unless you have holy water, avoid them. The teacher turned into a zombie more or less, and uses a sledgehammer. He's more difficult to evade, though he might be down for the count."
Seiko snorted softly. "Might be?" she muttered to Naomi. "She turned him into bug spray, literally."
Nicki cleared her throat. "There's another known menace, whether it's part of the same thing or not I don't know, but there's a shadow that might haunt the infirmary so watch yourselves around there. Likewise there's something called the 'darkening'. This place draws up despair and erodes happiness like facing a Dementor if you know Harry Potter. If things get too far, you will be turned or eaten from the inside out." She shifted, scanning the area to find Kokuhaku with a group of students from another school. "It's naming names, but Miss Akaboji nearly went that way. We got lucky, thankfully. I hope it doesn't happen to anyone else."
"Is there a way out of here?" one of the students called.
"There's one I know of, which involves a fair bit of work," replied Nicki. "The spirits hold this place together. You might have noticed there seem to be quakes every so often?" she asked, getting nods from various people. "That's likely you shifting from one 'closed space', or pocket dimension to another. Some of them are held up by the three newer child spirits, meaning they can be sent on and possibly get you out. Ultimately though, it's Sachiko and her mother that made this place, appeasing them is the best thing, though that's something that is going to take a bit. I know for the kids, they're missing tongues, find those and get the right one to the right kid, it should let them pass. Sachiko… while getting her tongue is part of it, she's been a wraith longer, it might mean she needs more steps to remind about her human past and send her on."
Looking around at the group, she sighed softly. "While we've got the chance, there's a couple of things I'd like to do, one is to figure out a way to stay in contact, another is to hopefully ensure everyone here has at least some supplies and a method of defending themselves before working on how we're going to ensure that we manage to find anyone not here so they're aware of things and sort out how to find what we need. How many of you read this?" she asked, holding up her notes from the podium and getting a number of hands going up. "Good, that'll save time."
Sachiko hated this, hated that some woman made her feel all of five again, even if, since she was dead, she hadn't aged since she was seven, over fifty years ago. Limping, she made her way into the little cubby that the girls shared, finding only Yuki in there.
Making her way over to a grotty couch, she flopped down on it, on her stomach, barely holding in a whimper from her sore butt.
"Hhanhhed ahain?" Yuki asked getting a whimper from Sachiko. "Wha' ya 'o?" she asked.
"Got into the toilet in the other building…" Sachiko trailed off, flinching as her butt burned from the latest spanking. "I tried to get that brat in the dress while she was alone, but that… monster was in there, doing something with the bodies. She…" Sachiko sniffled. "She spanked me… thirty times…"
Yuki winced. "Ow…" she muttered before sighing. "Don' 'hin' we're 'onna 'ill anyone. 'o' wif her aroun'. Hhe hhanhhed me earlier, 'wenn'y 'imes. s'ill hurts now," she said, dropping her head onto her arms. "'Ohiho was 'urned by wa'er, free 'imes."
Wincing, Sachiko shifted around, looking out the window at the unchanging landscape. Why was it that since this group had appeared, not only had everything gone wrong, but it was harder to keep the hate? She wanted to kill them, those living that had come into her domain, but first that lewd girl hadn't run off to meet the darkened version of her friend so they had to grab her, then that woman had saved her from hanging and stopped her from winding up cut up by wire. They hadn't managed to kill the lewd girl's friend either, stopped by that woman, who had… who had turned Yoshikazu into splatter so fine she couldn't bring him back.
That she didn't have her pet meant they couldn't get some of the living around, then the girls with the woman had stopped the girls doing things, burning them and the woman had recovered that rogue spirit and purged that one girl. Now they couldn't even get into the one room where a lot of living were.
It just wasn't fair.
"Why… 'ill us?" Yuki asked.
"What?" Sachiko asked, turning back to the other girl. "How do you even know?"
Yuki sniffed before pointing to her ruined eye, the one that she had stabbed until it pulped so long ago. "'aw 'ou… 'mem'er ih. 'Oo… oo 'illed 'ou?"
Wincing, Sachiko dropped her head onto her arms. Why was everything going weird today? Was Yuki regaining her sanity? Was she? She liked killing, driving living scared in front of you, tricking them, making them prey on one another and ultimately leaving their corpses, but… twice now she had been spanked, hard. She winced as her butt reminded her that it was still sore. The woman that did it could touch them, had done… that to her pet.
She shivered. She ruled this place and with only a few actions, that woman had taken control from her, leaving her feeling as helpless as when Takamine Yanagihori held her by her neck and strangled her with a wire or something. Reaching up, she rubbed her neck absently, a habit she hadn't indulged in for over a decade.
"Hhahhihho?" prompted Yuki.
"I… saw my mother killed by the principal of my time," Sachiko admitted finally. "He was… the father of the man I used to kidnap you. He chased me through the school and murdered me in front of my mother's corpse. I drove him to suicide and used his son to send people here for mother." She sniffled, memories long buried rising up. "She-she was so, so lonely, and I-I couldn't…" She trailed off as she realised her sight was blurred by tears.
She blinked as she felt the couch dip when Yuki joined her. "Thought I could help…" Sachiko continued. "Got to liking… killing." How was it harder to admit that than to lead someone to their death? "Ugh… how is she in my head? This is my place, and yet she stops everything and makes me… makes me remember being five, with my mother, before father died."
"Hhe a's like mom…" Yuki muttered. "Hhe was 'isa'oin'ed when I 'ried 'illin' the li'le 'irl… 'u' af'er, hhe hel' me like mom." She shifted, closing her eye as she flopped near Sachiko. "Ne'er 'one fis… no' since 'ou 'ill' us. 'on' wanna 'o ba' 'o 'illin'."
Sachiko sighed, closing her own eyes until Tokiko slammed in stomped through and vanished into one of the cubbies.
Maybe Yuki was right; besides, it wasn't like they were even able to kill while that woman was around. Maybe they would be better off calling this a loss rather than facing that again.
Leaning against the wall of the classroom, Saki watched Nicki moving around the room, speaking to the others, handing out food and drinks. She could honestly see why she spooked the other ghosts. She acted like a mother, not a harsh one, but still one unwilling to take crap from her kids and somehow, for some reason, she had decided that the kids here were hers, all of them.
It was more than that though; spirits like her had a certain amount of 'weight', an amount of presence. Nicki… there was a reason that Saki called her 'Daughter of the Oceans'. It was like standing on a beach and watching a large warship firing its guns, flash and fire and noise, but with a presence and a majesty that only bigger ships could out match, and that was without the rest of her.
Watching her working her way around, Saki frowned as she felt something odd on the edge of her awareness. It was almost like… A tremor hit the room, shaking this so badly that every light still on the ceiling fell, shattering and leaving glass all over where they didn't hit people.
Even among the screams and yells from the teens, several of them hugging one another and some crying, Nicki kept her cool, getting them into shelter as the walls and floor creaked and groaned.
Saki blinked when one of the ceiling joists snapped, dumping several large bits of wood down. She started to yell a warning, not even knowing if it would be heard over the sound of the others, only to see Nicki already moving.
The ship girl physically threw Naomi and Seiko aside before pulling that orange haired girl and Yuka under herself as the wood rained down and shattered on her back and wings.
Moments later the tremors faded and Nicki burst out of the rubble with a roar. "SACHIKO!"
"EEP! " Saki blinked at the sound of Sachiko's voice, loud, but faint enough that it was a bit of a ways off. "WASN'T ME! NO SPANKINGS, PLEASE! " continued Sachiko.
Still blinking, Saki looked around, taking in the new bodies, and new bodies in the room, which caused a few people to scream as they found themselves near the corpses, particularly as some of said corpses were 'fresher' than others. A minute later she was distracted by a very tentative knock at the door.
Making her way to the door, she opened it to find the three girl spirits standing there, none of them, even Sachiko, looking comfortable. "What do you three want?" Saki asked.
Sachiko looked at the other pair, chewing her lip. "Don't want to be spanked again when I didn't cause the spaces to shift," she said, the other two nodding along with her, though how exactly one nodded without a head was an interesting sight.
Saki eyed the three, feeling more than seeing Nicki's approach. "Can you prove that? Most everyone in here knows you three are some of the more murderous of us normally."
"Normally," Nicki commented, "but I'm not so sure about this one. I have the feeling she'd rather seal us off from her domain and the doors weren't removed," she continued, looking down at Sachiko, who gulped. "They don't seem as darkened as when I first met them, though given the dress Sachiko is wearing and the pair behind her are still ragged and missing parts, they're not cleansed."
Sachiko went to respond, only to be cut off by a boy's laughter.
"Hhahhihho, Hhahhihho… I 'ot fem, I 'ot fem," the boy spirit came running up, his eyes wide and wild. "I closed s'ace and 'ot fem!" The boy came to a stop, bouncing in front of Sachiko. "'Rushed fem in each ofer. Squish!" He clapped his hands together.
Saki looked at Nicki for a moment; the stepped out of the way of the door while the other three girl spirits moved quickly backwards, not that the boy – Ryou – seemed to notice.
"So, you're the one that tried to harm everyone?" Nicki asked, drawing Ryou's attention. His eyes widened even further before he tried to dart away, only for Sachiko to shove him back.
"Hhahhihho?" asked Yuki, turning to look at her.
"I'm murderous, not stupid," Sachiko responded. "Ryou tried to do this, and you heard her earlier. I'm not getting spanked for something he did." She looked down at him as he pleaded with his eyes before turning away.
Saki watched as Nicki picked Ryou up and laid him over her knee, with his trousers and underwear around his ankles. The boy's shriek quieted everyone as Sachiko and Yuki flinched. The last girl, Tokiko if Saki remembered right, watched for a moment as Nicki spanked Ryou.
When it was over, after some fifty spanks, far more than a human would have handled normally, Saki thought Nicki was going to either cuddle or release Ryou, only she didn't.
"I know you're vengeful, boy, but if you do anything like that again, well…" Saki blinked as she felt Nicki's aura flare, not the ship part of her, but whatever gave her the wings. Moments later, Sachiko shrieked and Saki's head snapped around to find herself facing a wolf large enough to fill the corridor, a broken blade driven through a broken chain around his neck. "I'll feed you to Fenrir, or his brother," she said.
"Now, now, you don't want to give Fenrir-kun indigestion, do you, Hawke?" another, more mature female voice sounded laced with amusement. Snapping her head around, Saki swallowed hard, recognising the massive white wolf, red designs painted on her face and body while a burning disc floated over her shoulders. "Besides, I believe you were interested in saving as many as you could, particularly the younger ones."
Saki blinked once, then again as Sachiko dived behind her knees, shaking hard enough that she could feel it.
"Afraid, child?" Amaterasu asked. "There are certainly things to be frightened of and it is a change to be the one frightened rather than frightening," she said. "Certainly my fellow wolves and I can be among them, but that is not what I am here for," she continued, moving right up to Saki and lowering her snout to look at her. "Though should you choose to remain with the young Valkyrie heir beyond this… disgusting example of a false Home, you should be aware that myself, Fenrir-kun, Holo-chan, Mono-chan and Lyrene-chan are some of the less strange beings you will encounter."
Fenrir let out an amused snort. "The ones facing Ragnarök, weapons in hand and shield sisters or brothers at their sides are interesting, more so than the ones that distrusted father more for his heritage than his abilities, which could have helped them had they treated him better." He looked around at the group in the classroom. "I suggest, young ones, you follow what Valkyrie Calhoun tells you. She is one facing Ragnarök with much greater resolve than some divines I knew. While Amaterasu and I cannot interfere here, you don't need us." He turned to Nicki, wrinkling his snout at the scent wafting off Ryou and the other spirits. "While I don't disagree that he deserved punishment, Valkyrie, he did do you a favour in bringing everything together bar the key to leave. You still need to destroy the…"
"Akuma," Amaterasu cut in.
"I was going to say denizen of Náströnd, given this realm," he snarked at his fellow divine. "In either case, there is one beyond the child or her dam that you need to bring down. The boy's actions bring that a little closer as now all the mortals are in one realm, as are the items to cleanse the children. You need only choose your companions and retrieve them, though some will require you to find the lowest levels and find the horrors still within."
Amaterasu bowed her head slightly to Fenrir before turning once more to Nicki. "The child that created this place may be able to aid you while she yet fears your hand. She may recall where the other children's tongues lie and may help with her dam." She paused for a moment, sweeping her gaze across the room. "The child of her line's branch along with the doll she holds may also be helpful."
Fenrir snorted softly, looking down at Nicki. "Your siblings will no doubt wish to learn of this on your return. See that you do, even if should mean calling upon myself, my brother and my sister as some of the last of Ásgardr, the Urdarbrunnr has not yet run dry for you or so the Norns say of you and your shield-sisters." With that, he bowed to her before fading out.
"I, likewise, Nicki-chan, will aid you with this should you require it to save the lives of those here," Amaterasu added, fading out herself.
Saki swallowed hard. "Well… that was terrifying. What do we do now, Nicki?" she asked.
Nicki frowned. "Saki, can you ride herd on these three?" she asked, indicating the three child spirits. "We're probably going to need them nearby for this. For everyone else, Sachiko obviously, along with Naomi… Ayumi, I think is supposed to be a Shinozaki and the blond boy who showed up with her. For everything else, I want a marine squad here to keep watch and another two checking the halls for stragglers."
Shifting, Saki listened while Nicki laid out plans for sweeping the school as well as they could.
Finding the first tongue had been easy enough, just requiring them to follow the instructions of the cursed doll, which led to Ryou leaving as soon as he had it. Tokiko's had necessitated a trip to the outdoor swimming pool, which almost led to Ayumi taking a swim in the fetid water, not to mention her getting a fairly major nose bleed from the residual emotion in the area.
As annoying as the trip turned out to be, Sachiko and Yuki couldn't help but shiver at the bodies they found at the bottom of the pool once they drained it, though Tokiko was more annoyed by one of the corpses, somehow managing to spit on it before anyone could stop her.
"What was that about?" Saki asked, looking down at her.
Tokiko waved a fist at the body. "He ha' ma 'ongue… an' didn' gi' i' bah'," she grumbled.
"That probably had something to do with the fact you'd already killed his friends. If his spirit is still around, I wouldn't be surprised if it would go after you, undead or not," Nicki pointed out before frowning. "That might explain Ayumi's attempt at taking a swim actually."
A bit of fiddling with the pipes and they managed to get Tokiko's tongue from the pump, passing it to her. A moment later, after placing the preserved appendage into her mouth, her head became much more solid and her colours returned to a more human look.
She blinked when a hand landed on her shoulder, looking up at Nicki. "Why're you sticking around kiddo?" Nicki asked. "You can get out of here and go to your rest."
"I… want to see my parents first," Tokiko admitted.
"I can see some of what you mean," Nicki admitted. "My own parents are dead and there's a lot I'd love to talk to them about if I had the chance to see them again without it costing something stupid." She took a breath and let it out slowly. "What about you, Yuki?" she asked.
Yuki nodded sadly. "Wanna a'ologise 'oo mom. Shouldn' have fough', bu' didn' thin' this'd happen."
"I want to stay too," Sachiko said softly. "It-it's easy to hate here, to wallow in it after everything, but… I don't deserve heaven, mum does, she shouldn't be here but she is." She looked down, scuffing the floor of the pool with her foot. She blinked when Nicki's hand squeezed her shoulder.
"If you three want that, then I can see about making room aboard for you, but I would prefer it if we make sure you're appeased first, okay?" asked Nicki. She got rather enthusiastic hugs from all three kids before Tokiko was picked up by one of Nicki's marines and taken aboard. "Alright, two down, two to go, do you remember where else, Sachiko?"
Sachiko frowned. "It was… by the infirmary, I think. The corridor goes in a bit instead of running straight. The tongue should be there, I think."
"Wha… is that my body?" a young male voice asked. "Am I… I'm dead?" Turning the group found a young man's spirit gaping from the top of the pool at one of the corpses that was being wrapped up.
Saki nodded. "We're taking everyone we can find back to their families," she said.
"You're going to take me back to my family? Thank you, I've been stuck here for so long. I hope at least my family will have some peace knowing what happened," he said before fading out.
Nicki shook her head and sighed as her marines finished wrapping the bloated, rotted corpses from the pool and took them to one of her freezers to lay out, each bag marked with the student's name. "One person's actions led to so much death, and it's something that repeats so often in history."
Sachiko nodded morosely. "My fault," she muttered, only to get a tap on the head. "Uh?"
"Murderous spirit," Saki pointed out. "You were murdered as well, and from the sound of it you thought you had good intentions to start with. Besides, it's not like I can put blame on you when I did my own share of murdering everyone after being killed." She looked up at where Nicki was boosting the others out of the pool near the showers rather than having everyone go around. "I think Nicki was speaking more of the principal here though, the one that killed you. It was his actions that led to you being what you are in the first place," she pointed out as the two of them joined the group being boosted out and were tossed up in turn before Nicki climbed out.
As they travelled towards the infirmary, the doll suddenly spoke, telling them to dig under bloody remains in the corridor, which had Sachiko frowning.
Yuki shifted, ducking her head. "We didn'," she said. "Go' s'lashed afore we could an' dro'ed her. I saw her in wiv everyone else, no chance ih ha'ened fis 'ime."
"I've never understood this thing," Sachiko muttered, eying the doll. "I mean, I know normally it can lead to things, but it's weird even by this space's standards." She crossed her arms over her thin chest, scowling at the rotted walls around them. "Why does it need us in certain places to talk and what was with the zodiac directions thing? Come to that, Yoshikazu was pretty much a cabbage after everything, how's his doll know this stuff?"
"Vegetable," Saki corrected before cocking her head. "Someone's coming towards the top of the stairs."
A moment later a male voice called out, "Is someone there?"
Yoshiki blinked as they all looked up to see a boy in a similar uniform to him, but with dark hair and glasses. "Morishige! You're alive!"
"Ahh, Kishinuma, Nakashima. And our class rep! I'm very glad to see you all safe and sound." Morishige responded before taking in the others. "Who are these four?"
Nicki frowned slightly, watching the young man. "I'm Nicki Calhoun, Royal Navy. These three are Sachiko Shinozaki, Yuki Kanno and Saki Akagiri." It took her a moment before she spotted something in his hands. A small hemp bag, stained with blood, similar to the ones they had found Ryou and Tokiko's tongues in. "What do you have there?"
"Hmm?" asked Morishige seemingly confused for a moment. "Oh this? I, uh, found it under the floorboards in the hallway just up these stairs."
"Mine, mine," Yuki bounced in place. "'lease gi' ih…," she requested. As she approached him, everyone saw him stiffen and Yuki's actions become much stiffer. "Shi'…" she managed before she found a pair of scissors in her hand.
She leapt at him, bloody scissors coming up only to crack his glasses as they tumbled over, her on top since she had managed to paralyse Morishige. Scratching and him, she hissed, trying to get at his eyes through his glasses, tearing at his clothes.
Sachiko and Saki were the first to respond, jumping in to pull Yuki away in spite of her hissing, spitting and scratching. While Saki managed to haul her off Morishige, Sachiko manged to wrestle away the scissors, throwing them away while Nicki hauled the boy out of her sight.
"Saki?" asked Nicki as she got Morishige to relative safety, claiming the pouch with Yuki's tongue in it.
"No idea," Saki responded. "It's not her though; she's almost purple, that's not normal."
Now Saki had called attention to it, it was obvious something was wrong with Yuki, instead of being a semi-transparent blue, she was a dark purple.
"H-here!" called Naomi, tossing a fresh bottle of blessed water to Sachiko.
Catching the bottle, Sachiko hissed, grimacing at the feel of the blessing. "Ow, ow, ow… How is this burning through the bottle?" she wondered aloud. Fiddling with the lid, she yelped as some of the water splashed on her, burning her flesh. Grimacing, she held on, eventually tossing half the bottle's contents over both Saki and Yuki, causing them both to howl in pain, though it broke through the darkening that had taken over Yuki.
The mist flowed around them for a moment before darting at Sachiko, wrapping around her and pressing into her nose, ears, mouth and skin.
Choking, Sachiko whimpered as she upended the remainder of the bottle over her head. The acidic burn made her shriek, but it drew an even louder wail from the mist. As it withdrew into a ball, three shots rang out; bright blue light flashing passed the girls to burn the mist away.
Dropping to her knees, Sachiko groaned and coughed. "Tha's an esperience I coulda done wi'ou'," she muttered drunkenly.
"Are you… are you alright?" Ayumi asked.
"Hurt…" Sachiko managed while Saki and Yuki nodded. "Never seen that before," she added. Feeling Ayumi's arms wrap around her, she let out a whimper.
Moving next to Saki and Yuki, Nicki took the tongue from the pouch Morishige had been carrying, causing Yuki to blink at it for a moment before taking it. A moment later she was human coloured once more, with both eyes and clean clothes.
"Go rest, Saki," Nicki said kindly, getting a nod from the spirit before she returned aboard. "You going to be alright, Yuki?" she asked.
Yuki nodded after a moment. "I think… I want to apologise to that boy, but…" she shivered. "I don't think I can stay in here long. The darkening is already trying to get me back. I think it can't affect you very well, or at all. Maybe aboard I'll be safe."
Nicki nodded, helping Yuki around to talk to Morishige before one of her marines took the girl aboard. She sent him off with a few marines to collect any bodies he knew the locations of before gathering Sachiko up in her arms. "One left before we can hopefully get everyone else out of here." Closing her eyes for a moment, Nicki took a couple of breaths. "Home stretch, but I think we're going to need more things than just your tongue, Sachiko. Anything we should look out for?"
Sachiko frowned, snuggling against Nicki's chest. "My tongue… I think Principal Takamine took it. I remember… I had a ribbon and a cat toy, and I think we might need to get to mom, but I don't remember how." She paused for a moment, frowning. "There was a researcher here once; one of the ghosts knew him. If you can find his tapes and watch them, maybe find her notes as well, they might confirm how to get in and out. The ritual… the one that uses my name, isn't something I made, it was something from mom's family somehow. Maybe it'll explain some of this as well."
"Scavenger hunt?" Ayumi asked. Getting a nod, she whined. "I just want this to be over already," she whimpered, getting a nod from Naomi.
Shifting carefully, Nicki gave both girls a hug. "Let's get back to the classroom first, see if anyone there has anything, then we'll go track things down. I think I know who one of the people is. That Naho girl, if we can find her again. I know she had a 'sempai' than she was crushing on hard, I think she mucked the ritual for his sake, we just need her notes, or possibly to dump a bottle of blessed water on her."
Sachiko snorted softly. "I think she darkened completely. I don't know what it'd do, but it hurt."
"Given she almost made us kill Mayu, I think it'd be a bit of turnabout on her," Yoshiki commented.
Nicki nodded. "Let's get back, then we can sort out where to hunt."
"You again," the girl in the purple blazer asked, looking at the group that entered the library of Heavenly Host, a room filled floor to ceiling with books stacked on their shelves.
"Yup, us again," Nicki replied cheerfully. "I think you have something we need if we're going to blow this popsicle stand, seeing as this hellhole decided to be a dick and hide both the way to where Sachiko is buried and her doll until we do certain things. One of which requires something you have."
The girl smirked at Nicki. "Oh? And what makes you think I would give up something that valuable?"
Nicki returned the smirk. "Well, did you know that the first principal of Heavenly Host and the father of Yoshikazu Yanagihori, Takamine, attempted to rape the school nurse, Yoshie Shinozaki of the Shinozaki clan leading to her death and leading to him also murdering Sachiko, who has something nasty inside her that is part of why this shithole spawned?" she asked getting a shocked look from the girl. "Oh yeah, Yoshie was apparently something of a witch and this." She waved at the school around them, "Was a failed attempt to keep her husband. It was only a year or two later, after it was buried within Sachiko, that both Shinozakis were killed and this place appeared."
"How do you know something like that? I would have thought it would be buried away," the girl said, cocking her head.
Nicki smirked at her. "Put it down to my unique nature," she said. "It does take particular people to encounter one near divine, much less several actual divines. But that isn't part of the story, what is relevant here is that between Yoshie's curse and Sachiko finding a way to torment Takamine, he not only desecrated Sachiko's corpse in a certain manner, but later committed suicide from the roof of the school.
"It was his son, also under the curse, which may actually be your 'darkening', that kidnapped the three students from Heavenly Host. He broke before killing them though, leading to Sachiko killing at least one, probably all three there, and removing their tongues from their corpses much like her own was." Nicki shrugged, moving around to lean against one of the reading tables in the room. "We need to confirm it, which means using the statue you have to get into the infirmary since the shifting around blocked it off, but Sachiko apparently started trying to help her mother's spirit only to gain a fairly typical for vengeful spirits bloodlust."
"Interesting, but you still don't have the full picture," the girl said. "There's still a lot of ground left to cover before you know everything about this school…." She started to move towards the door. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's someone I need to find…."
She reached the door, only to be blown backwards by Saki's power as she and Sachiko blocked it, sending her tumbling across the ground. "Sorry, but I've been asked to ensure 'you sit your arse down and listen'," Saki said.
Nicki smirked as the girl turned to her in shock.
"Naho, I'm disappointed in you," Ayumi put in.
"Hmm?" asked Naho. "Now, why would that be? Weren't you a veritable fangirl of mine?"
Ayumi took a deep breath. "It's your notes, the ones you specifically left here in Heavenly Host." She waved one of the notepads at the ghost. "What do you mean by 'the ruins of the Shinozaki estate'?" she asked. "And what is this 'Sachiko in the Everafter' crap?!"
"I would like to know how you even found my family's estate, much less got inside to find out about the ritual," Sachiko added, glaring at Naho. "Even accounting for my own interference in things while I was more interested in bathing in blood, you shouldn't have managed to find the ritual unless something was responsible." She paused, her brows tightening. "Come to that, I don't get why your corrupted version of the ritual remained available, you're dead here. I didn't make you remembered that I can think of so it should have faded long since like every other corpse in this place."
Ayumi nodded. "Your notes even say, to perform the ritual correctly you have to say the phrase as if Sachiko is there, otherwise she will curse those present and taken them to 'sacred ground'."
Saki scowled, looking at Naho. "There's a reason why you would, particularly since you knew what the proper ritual was."
Her eyes narrowing, Ayumi looked down at Naho. "Did you do it for him?! Your 'beloved'?! Your mentor, Mr. Kibiki?" she asked. "Were you trying to make sure he had a large sample size to study for his article?!" She eeped, taking a step back as Naho started laughing madly. "What the hell is so funny?!"
"You think you're so smart, huh?" Naho asked harshly. "Well, you're not… so go fish!"
Yoshiki scowled. "Go fish? What the hell does that mean?!"
"She's claiming that you're wrong," Sachiko said. "And she's part right, she didn't 'love' him, she was obsessed. Worse than that boy Nicki killed." Her lip curled in disgust. "Him I could well do without, even as an anatomical model he was fucking nasty, and that's me saying that."
"Of course," Naho returned. "Anyone who takes stuff posted on the net and swallows it wholesale is a fucking dumbass. A total retard," she continued her face curling into a disgusted grimace.
Nicki gave her an amused look. "So you think everyone else is being held back?" she asked, getting odd looks from the spirits. "Retard or retarded more properly, means delayed or held back."
"You're shaking…" Ayumi noted. "You can't tell me that you didn't have the slightest inkling… that it never crossed your mind something like this might happen! How many people did your little whim send to a slow, painful death, huh?! You're the one who spread Sachiko's curse across the entire country! YOU!" she yelled, getting right into Naho's face until Nicki placed a hand on her shoulder.
Naho grimaced, curling in on herself. "Don't you think I know that?" she asked. "But Kibiki… My dear Kibiki smiles at me when I do right by him," she started to snicker, a Joker-like grin stretching her lips. "Oh, Kibiki… my sweet, succulent mentor… I would do anything for you… anything at all. But you occult freaks… you can all go rot in a corner, for all I care!"
"As a vengeful spirit, I almost can't believe I'm saying this, but she is fucking creepy," Saki commented.
Sachiko nodded. "It only gets worse with the darkening… I didn't stick around in the mortal world long at any point, but those who obsess and kill seem worse than most, and once again, I'm a vengeful ghost."
Pulling Ayumi into a hug, Nicki looked down at Naho. "You said before that you died here, obviously you came here because of your mentor, but do you remember how you died? Many spirits do and several like ensuring everyone else knows of their deaths. Do you?" she asked, cocking her head slightly.
Naho pulled up short as she went to retort. "I don't actually," she admitted. "That's the one moment I just can't recall, in fact. No matter how much I try, it won't come to me." She sighed, looking at the floor.
"Your selfish egotism cost you the person you 'loved' most," Ayumi said.
Her head snapped up, eyes wide behind her glasses. "What?" asked Naho.
"You really don't remember, do you? Your very last actions as a human being, after you lost all hope… but before you died…" Ayumi started explaining. "You weren't swallowed up by the school, probably because of your abilities… but you did succumb to the darkening." She pulled out another one of Naho's notebooks and broke away from Nicki to show them to Naho.
As she read the notes, Naho's face became more pale and drawn and she started hyperventilating. Her eyes went wide behind her glasses while her pupils that had never been particularly big shrank to almost nothing then she started screaming.
"Do you get it now?!" Ayumi asked. "You killed him! You killed the man you loved! You killed Mr. Kibiki!" she was almost yelling at this point. "You took his life with your own bare hands!"
Pulling away from the ground, Naho screamed like the damned soul she was, stumbling upright and staggering towards the shelves. Reaching them, still unsteady, she spun, covering her face with her hands before pulling them away to reveal eyes turned red.
Nicki pulled Ayumi back as Naho lunged with a scream, only to stop flat with a solid clang as she smacked into Nicki's chest.
Saki groaned, "Oh not this again!"
"Yeah… staying out of this one," Sachiko muttered, wincing when Nicki backhanded Naho hard enough that she slammed into the bookshelves, sending down a rain of books. "I was young when I died and murderous because of it, not stupid."
Nicki scowled as black smoke came from Naho's mouth, causing both other spirits to back up, neither of them wanting to deal with that again. Pulling a puddle plort from her hold, she scowled, running through the blessing before crushing it and throwing the water right into Naho's face as the ghost swooped at her.
Naho screamed loudly, forcing Ayumi, Yoshiki and Naomi to cover their ears as they backed into the corner of the room.
"You," Naho, or the thing controlling her spectral form growled. "Why won't you die? How do you stop me devouring those here?"
Nicki shrugged. "Kinda comes with being a Devonport girl, weird shit is practically our day job." She glared at Naho's form, palming a laser SMG and a pair of boom plorts from her armoury. "Besides, you're not the first supernatural nasty shithole that's attempted to kill me. I take it that you're the one that kept Naho's memories and writings in the real world from fading like so many here."
"Of course," Naho responded. "It's easy food and oh so much quicker than seeing little Sachiko fetch my meals for me when they come here. All she and her brats need to do is ensure that the living meet their ends so I can feed on their corpses." With that, she lunged at Nicki again.
Nicki, Saki and Sachiko ducked as Naho flew over them into the corridor before Nicki rose, throwing one of the boom plorts at the creature.
Seeing the red/yellow crystal flying through the air, Sachiko grabbed Saki and pulled them both into the room, yelping as a thunderous explosion echoed through the school, wood and metal passing through Sachiko's form. Looking up, she looked at the hole in the corridor wall where a stunned, possessed Naho lay, before turning to Nicki. "Isn't this place in a bad enough state?" she asked.
"Sometimes the best way of dealing with a pain in the arse is to blow the fucker up," Nicki replied with a shrug. Switching the other boom plort for a pair of puddle ones and a couple of phosphor plorts, she cast the blessing as she moved to press her knee onto Naho's chest. "Now, you can get out and be gone, or you can be forced out." She looked down at Naho, who hissed at her, eyes showing nothing but red. "Your choice," she said, closing her eyes before crushing all four plorts.
A brilliant flash of light caused Sachiko to yelp, her arm going over her eyes. Her yelp, and the shots that followed, were drowned out by the horrendous scream from what had been Naho, making her bury her face in Saki's shoulder, stuffing her ears as well as she could.
When she could finally see and hear again, she looked over to see Naho still there, looking more like a corpse than her corpse likely did given how pale she looked. More burns in the rotted wooden walls and floor showed were Nicki had shot the darkening, likely destroying that bit as well, though how Naho hadn't faded away, Sachiko didn't know. Then again, that Kokuhaku girl had survived thanks to Nicki's intervention, so maybe it was something she did.
"Is-is it over?" Naomi asked, the three still human members of the group managing to get to the door.
"Nearly," Nicki replied. "We just need this one to cough up the statue so we can get at the infirmary… maybe after that the school will cough up Sachiko's doll, then we just need to get her body to purge things."
Sachiko grimaced at that. "Yeah… about my body?" she started. "Uh… it's not just mine down there." Seeing everyone turn to her, she held her hands up. "I think the only bodies still up here are either near the furnace or hers and her mentor's, who are in the custodian's room, well, a room off it. That said… there's been a lot of people in here, with everything collapsed, presuming they didn't spontaneously return to life or something like the girl Saki knows or the orange haired girl, there's still a pit full of bodies and other things in the tunnels to my grave, including Yoshikazu's corpse."
"How do you mean?" Naomi asked, looking a little green around the gills.
"I don't know," Sachiko groaned before sighing. "Look, you know what I am, and her 'ritual' obviously didn't help because it led more people here," she continued, waving at Naho as Nicki dragged the girl over. "But since Nicki showed up things have been going… different." She looked up at Naomi. "Your friend, Seiko? She died here, either she gets hung because the darkening manages to get you and time is… wonky here, or she gets cut up by a piano wire trap trying to escape you. Nicki shows up and not only is there no easy way to get her until you were in the infirmary, but also she stops both of you dying in the toilets.
"There's more as well, Ayumi is related to me somehow, which might explain why she got possessed in some times, one of which resulted in her shoving Yoshiki down the stairs, killing him like mom died." Sachiko took a breath and let it out. "There's a lot of others, even with you three often being among the ones to escape from your group, there's plenty of times you don't and the other four, your teacher, Mayu, the boy that Yuki attacked and Seiko, or that other girl, the one with orange hair, all die. Hell, I remember Miyu helping my appeased-self get some people out of here, which was after she was dead."
Swallowing, Sachiko shifted uncomfortably until Saki slipped an arm around her. "I don't know what's going on now," Sachiko admitted. "But I know Saki isn't supposed to be here, nor was Miyu, nor were others. Somehow, Nicki's presence is making things in different spaces warp. It might mean if we go to get my body, there will be living people in there, either because Yoshikazu is gone or those that were darkened. Maybe even some the four of us kids killed. Heck, we didn't run into the anatomy model and Yoshikazu in the science lab while getting her notes. I think that's because Nicki dealt with both Yoshikazu and that Yuuya boy. He was likely to be a murderer without my help."
"If I hadn't killed him, he probably would have killed Tohko when we encountered them heading back," Nicki added. "And that's the one we saw, not getting into ones we didn't."
"I didn't die here," Saki said, frowning. "But I did kill here, before I was purified. Mayuri, the girl that approached me when we went to the classroom was one of those I killed here. How or why she is alive again I don't know." She paused for a moment before blinking. "Oh shit, I forgot someone. There's another ghost here, well, another not related to those that died here. Takaomi Shimoda, he hangs out in the boys' toilet on the third floor. I think the girls in brown or beige might know him."
Nicki nodded slightly. "We'll see if we can get him while we're dealing with things," she said before turning to Naho. "Now, I believe you have a statue, and since we're here, are there any actually useful books in there or are they all the same stuff we'd find in most kids' sections at a library?"
Naho shook her head. "I-I don't know about the books, but the statue… h-here." She offered the statue to Nicki, who took it with a nod before sending her marines out to gather all the books much to Naho's shock.