The sun rose slowly in the eastern sky, and a new day arrived once more. The morning sunlight spilled across the campus, and a peaceful atmosphere permeated every corner of the high school, as calm and serene as ever.
In the early morning, students flooded through the school gates and into the campus, entering the school building in small groups. They changed their shoes at the front entrance before heading upstairs.
The main entrance of Japanese high schools is equipped with lockers specifically for changing shoes. Students must switch to indoor shoes before entering the building. Since these lockers are assigned to specific students, they are also used to store personal items. Naturally, because of this private nature, they often serve as mailboxes for love letters or as tools for pranks.
In front of a wall of lockers stood a female student with dyed yellow curly hair, cotton pads taped to her face, and a bandage on her forehead. She held a small box in her hands, her expression filled with a mix of gravity and determination.
"This time... it has to work..." the girl muttered as she prepared to open the box. Just then, another long-haired girl standing beside her spoke in a worried tone.
"Eguchi... are you sure you want to keep doing this?"
"Hmph... of course. I'm not the type of person to give up after just one or two small failures. No matter what, I have to give that Kansai girl a piece of my mind this time..." The girl with dyed hair, Eguchi, spoke with a resolute expression despite her friend's concern. Hearing her words, the long-haired girl couldn't help but blink in surprise.
'I don't think you can call those "small failures" anymore...'
Thinking this to herself, the long-haired girl's gaze drifted over Eguchi. Aside from the cotton pads and bandages on her head and face, her arms and legs were covered in bruises. Some areas had obvious large abrasions, and several of her fingers were wrapped in bandages. It seemed her entire body was a collection of minor injuries, and even her posture was slightly crooked and unstable. It was clear she had been through a series of accidents.
Eguchi, a delinquent girl, had taken a dislike to her classmate Fushimi Inaba, who had transferred from Kyoto in the Kansai region. She had attempted to bully her, but every time she tried to carry out a plan, she was hit by inexplicable bad luck. Her schemes would fail, and she would pay a physical and mental price in the process.
However, this string of misfortunes hadn't quite made Eguchi give up yet. All of this made her, a former middle school bully, feel like she was losing face. She couldn't establish any "authority" among the girls in her class. Wanting to reclaim the dominance she had in middle school, she believed the only way to rebuild her reputation was to successfully make Fushimi Inaba suffer.
"Just you wait... I'll show that Kansai girl this time..."
Muttering to herself, Eguchi slowly opened the small box. Inside were insects she had painstakingly caught yesterday. She planned to stuff them into Fushimi Inaba's locker. The lockers in this public school were old and had many wide gaps, enough to squeeze in a few stink bugs.
Holding a pair of tweezers, Eguchi slowly opened the small box, preparing to pick up the insects and shove them into the locker. However... when she lifted the lid, she froze. The metal box was completely empty.
"Where are the bugs? Wait, where are the bugs I caught yesterday!?"
While Eguchi was confused, a small spider was clinging to the underside of the lid she was holding. Feeling the lid open, it quickly began to crawl. It moved onto Eguchi's hand and swiftly ducked into her sleeve, disappearing into her clothes.
Feeling a bone-chilling itch, a wave of terror rose from the depths of Eguchi's heart. She screamed and ran outside, with the long-haired girl following her in a panic.
"Eguchi seems quite energetic this morning..." Hayakawa Rin said, tilting her head as she watched Eguchi scream past her while walking toward the school building. Beside her, Miketsu took a sip of milk with an expressionless face before replying calmly.
"Isn't she? It's good to be energetic..."
...
When class ended, students left their seats to chat noisily with one another. In the middle of the rowdy classroom, Miketsu, in the guise of Fushimi Inaba, sat at her desk leisurely scrolling through her phone.
"Hey, Inaba... have you heard? About the class next door." At that moment, Hayakawa Rin leaned in from behind her. Miketsu glanced back at her and spoke calmly.
"Heard what?"
"It's about Akiko Shikaku from the next class. You know, the occult celebrity I took you to see a few days ago. For some reason, she suddenly announced that she won't do divinations for anyone anymore. She's also stopped telling ghost stories or looking at spirit photos. It's like she's a completely different person. I heard she even gets angry if people ask her about that stuff!" Rin whispered, leaning closer. Miketsu responded indifferently.
"Is that so? I suppose she realized it's not good to fool people with nonsense all the time. That's a good thing..." Miketsu shrugged slightly. Hearing this, Rin continued with a troubled expression.
"Yeah, maybe that's it... Maybe she got discouraged after she couldn't show us anything that day. After all, maybe ghosts really don't exist in this world... but her doing this makes things a bit difficult for me." Rin's tone carried a hint of distress. Miketsu couldn't help but ask out of curiosity.
"Difficult? How so?"
"It's this..." As she spoke, Rin pulled out an old magazine from the desk behind her. The cover was mostly black and featured numerous abstract yokai. A mess of exaggerated fonts was scattered across it without any clear layout, and a large title covered the most prominent position. Seeing the title, Miketsu raised an eyebrow and read it aloud.
"Urban Legend Secrets Revealed?"
"Yeah... I borrowed this from Akiko Shikaku a while ago. I finished it and was going to return it, but when she saw the book, she looked really angry. She just told me to take it away. Now I don't know if I should keep it or find another chance to return it..." Rin said helplessly. Clearly, Akiko Shikaku's transformation was too abrupt for her.
'Is her reaction that intense? It seems she really was scared out of her wits that day...' Miketsu thought. It was obvious that compared to Miko, Akiko Shikaku's spiritual perception and mental fortitude were on a completely different, much lower level. Someone like her was indeed not suited for a profession like a miko or an onmyoji.
Actually, rather than saying Akiko Shikaku had poor mental fortitude, it was more accurate to say that this was how a normal high school girl should behave. Miko's mental strength was terrifyingly high.
Miketsu had seen many geniuses with high innate spiritual perception, but this was the first time she had seen a regular high school girl like Miko possess such mental fortitude.
Pulling her thoughts back, Miketsu looked at the magazine about urban legends and felt a spark of interest. She said to Rin,
"Maybe Akiko has been in a bad mood lately. You can just return it in a few days. But before that, could you let me take a look at it?"
"Eh? Inaba, are you actually interested in urban legends? I thought you didn't believe in ghosts?" Rin asked curiously. Miketsu answered honestly.
"I'm just bored and want to read them as stories..."
"I see... here, take it. I've already finished it. There are some pretty scary stories in there..."
As she spoke, Rin handed the magazine to Miketsu. After saying thanks, Miketsu turned around and placed it on her desk to flip through it.
'Let's see... what kind of urban legends are in here. After I divine which ones are real, I'll have Miko handle them one by one. Her basics are mostly solid now; it's time for her to gain some actual combat experience...'
At this moment, Miketsu felt as though she was holding an execution list in her hands.
Rate on N.U.
